I get up early the next day to visit two sites in PP before my flight back to Bangkok. I had booked a motorbike guide through Tony Montana the day before but neither Tony nor the guide were around at 8 am. Skeevy tuk-tuk guy happens to be waiting outside the door and is waving violently at me. We agreed on the same price I was going to pay the motorbike driver and head off to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, also known as The Killing Fields. The road to the fields is dusty and dirty. It reminded me a lot of the road I live on in Thailand. My mind is on the hundreds of people who took a similar path to these same fields. Two dollars gets me into the field. Staring me in the face is a massive stupa, white with golden trim. I think it’s beautiful. The whole area looks like a pleasant garden. I walk to the right towards the small museum building. There are 3 rooms in the building, one showing a short movie, one housing an ever changing exhibit, and the last one home to a permanent display. In the changing exhibit room, there are photos of Duch, the mastermind of S-21 (more on that later.) The photos date back to his high school years all the way up to his trail. The exhibit tells me he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for war crimes. I don't feel like waiting for the next screening of whatever movie is showing so I go into the next room.
The permanent exhibit shows images of the excavation of the fields. Weapons are on display in foggy glass cases, along with jaw bones and skulls that show the damage done by killing blows to the head. The room is full of visitors and is silent. After reading and looking at scraps of clothes I leave the building and walk down a dirt path towards the fields. Next door, beyond the simple wire fence, is a school of children playing at recess. The only sounds besides tour guides and whispers of visitors is their laughter. The path leads you towards a few areas of the fields that are marked off, usually in a perfect square. I had expected them to be bigger. The first area is a mud pit sunken into the ground with a bamboo roof over it, failing to protect the grave from the elements. A sign says that 400 bodies had been excavated here, in this one pit.
A few feet away an area is roped off with a sign that says bones, teeth and clothing keep rising to the surface when it rains. I can see what looks like bits of bone popping up from the wet ground.
The next grave is a pit like the last, where 166 headless bodies were found.
A few feet to the left of this grave is yet another marked off pit, shaded by a large tree. A sign next to the tree says this tree was used as a place where Khmer Rouge soldiers bashed in the heads of children. The Khmer didn’t believe in “wasting bullets” on what they deemed to be “New People” so they usually slit their throats or beat them to death.
Across from the pit is a huge, knobby tree they call The Magic Tree. The Khmer use to hang a loud speaker from the tree to play music loud enough to drone out the screams and moans.
Walking along the dirt path I feel like I’m walking on a hill. To my left and right are grassy pits that have been excavated. I walk along the small dam built to protect the grave site from the encroaching river. The path encircles a pleasant lagoon, with lily pads and fish flopping up to eat bugs. It’s a need walk to try and get myself together. The path leads me back to the graves and I pass another sign:
I end at the beautiful, large stupa. It’s made of panels of glass. I remove my shoes and go up for a closer look. Inside the stupa are human skulls. Tier upon tier all the way up to the top. Hundreds, at least, on every tier. The victims of this field. Plaques tell me they’re grouped by gender and age. I stand and stare at the skulls and I can still hear the playing children laughing at recess. I’m angry at the sound. I’ve been angry ever since I got here. I’m angry at the laughter because it floats over this field like a worn scar on an old wound; it sounds like healing and I can’t understand healing at this magnitude.
*Thanks to Joe Moore for the photos.
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