Monday, January 27, 2014

Phnom Penh January 22

Wednesday, January 22

We have one day in Phnom Penh before we leave for Siem Reap. So, we hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day.  He took us to "The Genocidal Center", one of the over 150 prisons and killing fields in Cambodia.


Mass grave site.



These mounds were all over and they were mass burial sites. Many bodies have all been dug up and removed.

Clothing and bones are still being uncovered by the weather.

Memorial building housing many of the skulls.


The memorial building where all the skulls that have been dug up and cleaned are stored.
It was extremely moving to walk around this memorial park. Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, ordered the extermination of 90% of all the intellecturals, educators, artisits and anyone he felt was against his regime. There are not many old people living in the country. The age of 65 is considered old now.

We then went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. 

A high school classroom used for torture.


Photographs were kept of all the people in the prison. Less than 10 people survived.


Interrogation room.


"The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notoriousSecurity Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng (Khmer [tuəl slaeŋ]) means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill". Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country,[1] and as many as 20,000 prisoners there were killed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_museum



Our Tuk Tuk driver droping us off at our Hotel later in the day.


That evening we went to the National Museum theater to watch a traditional play dipicting life from birth to marriage to death. A tradition that almost was lost because most of the music and theater people were killed during Pol Pot's reign.  In the early 1990's, surviving members of the theater were identified and a new generation is now bringing it back.


The music and singing that accompanied the play.





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