The Killing Fields

January 5^th, 2025 

Taking a tuk tuk around mid morning, it was a 20-minute drive out of the city to Choeung Ek, the best known of the over 300 Killing Fields used by the Khmer Rouge.  Almost 9000 bodies were exhumed from this site in 1980, after the regime fell the prior year.  Many of the dead were former political prisoners who the Khmer Rouge kept in Prison S-21 (where I was yesterday) and in other Cambodian detention centers.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect…

Passing through the gate, I paid my entrance fee and received an audio guide.  Over the next two and half hours, I would wander around the grounds, hear some terrifying stories, and learn a lot about what transpired here.

The entrance to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.

Typically, prisoners were transported from Phnom Penh to the site in trucks in the cover of darkness at night.  They generally didn’t stay there more than a day before their fate was sealed but more often, they were killed within hours of arriving at Choeung Ek, even though they were unaware of what was about to happen.  Often, they had been told that they were just being relocated to a different detention center, not realizing that their “confession” at Prison-S21 or a similar facility, had signed their death warrant.

The main stupa in the middle, where the audio tour will finish.

There had been some buildings constructed for housing some prisoners, supplies and one was for toxic chemicals such as lime.  The lime was either used to finish off a victim who was still alive in a mass grave before it was covered up, or to mitigate the terrible stench or rotting bodies.  After the liberation of the area in 1979, locals came in and dismantled the buildings, partly in anger of what had transpired there, but also to salvage useful and valuable material such as wood and corrugated steel roofing.

One of the information boards standing where a building would have been located.

Not sure of the name of this tree, but if you zoom in, it has a spiderweb of branches.

The main stupa.

Where some of the mass graves had been unearthed, a small fence and roof was erected around it.  Others were merely depressions in ground, like a bomb crater.  Even though most of the bones and cloths were removed, even to this day some evidence of the horror works its way to the surface of the ground, especially after heavy rains.

A mass burial site that contained the bodies of 450 victims.

Other mass burial sites, which formed bomb-like depressions once the bones had been removed.

In one section, the furthest from the entrance, some pink lilies were floating on a pond with the occasional fish disturbing the surface.  The odd bench lined a path that followed the edge of the water.  It was a great spot to sit, listen to stories of survivors on the audio guide, and reflect.

A peaceful spot of a place where horrific things occurred.

A walking path around the little lake.

The was a mass grave of 166 headless bodies.  They would have been Khmer Rouge members or guards who did something wrong or perhaps didn't carry out orders.  As additional punishment, the location of their heads is unknown.

These are pieces of clothes that surfaced over the years after 1980, usually during the rainy season.  They also included strips of cloth that would have been used as blindfolds.

This was one of the most gut wrenching things to see:  The Killing Tree.  To the right of this try was a mass grave filled with bodies of women and children.  This tree was used to bash babies and toddlers' heads against it to kill them.  When the first liberators arrived, it was smeared with blood and bits of brain.

A former Chinese grave from pre-1975, before the genocide.

Bone fragments that surfaced over time after the main exhumation in 1980.  In the bottom left corner, those are teeth.

This is known as the "Magic Tree".  Not sure how magic it was.  There were loud speakers strung up in the branches which blared patriotic, communist music, but the main purpose was drown out the screams of those being killed from other prisoners and nearby inhabitants.  The audio guide played an excerpt of it, and it was a woman's shrill voice singing in Khmer, to some high pitched, traditional string instruments and it was super haunting, and quite frankly terrible to listen to even if you weren't about to meet your fate.

More bone fragments that have surfaced over time.

Originally the bones of the victims were housed in wooden buildings, but the Cambodian government decided to build this stupa in the center of the grounds to house the skulls and larger bones properly, as a memorial.

The skulls were examined and marked with small coloured stickers, some to differentiate male from female ones, others to designate how the person had been killed, either by iron tools, bamboo sticks, crowbars etc.

It's crazy to think of how each one of these skulls was a person who had dreams, hopes, ambitions...all to be wiped away from a crazy regime that wanted everyone to be farmers...

After completing the audio guide, I wandered over to a small museum in one corner of the grounds.  There was a 15-minute-documentary of poor production quality, from the early 80s, which showed a bit of footage of the Killing Field when it was first discovered, but primarily the footage was of interviews of the first people to enter the area after the Khmer Rouge fled.  It had some very haunting music at the end of the film.

Walking towards the small museum in the corner of the center.

This was the uniform of the Khmer Rouge.

Some killing instruments and shackles that were found.

This sign was on the door to enter the small movie theatre to watch a short documentary.  It's an interesting collection of things not to bring:  a hat, cigarette, camera...oh and a gun or a hand grenade!

Coming out of the museum, looking back at the stupa.

My tuk tuk driver, Rottha, who brought me out from the city, and waited to take me back.

Looking back towards the main part of Phnom Penh.

What's a fancy looking shopping mall doing way out here?

This guy's trailer was so big that I couldn't capture all of it...plus I didn't realize that he had two guys riding with him until after I took the photo.

I asked Rottha what this fancy building was.  Through Google translate he messaged "The Ministry of Interior" and the next translation was "Gripped with Iron Fist"...which I got a chuckle out of.

I was shocked at the amount of clothes these ladies were wearing...hoodies, and even gloves for the driver!

A busy and lively park near my hotel.  This is the nicer side of Cambodia to see.

Seems like the place could do with some more grass though...

On my way to dinner, I saw these guys were shooting some low budget film.  The guy on the left has a fake machine gun, the guy on the right, a fake moustache...which one is more dangerous?!?

Okay, Cambodian genocide two-day tour complete.  Next stop, the island of Koh Rong…time to relax and think happy thoughts...