My stay in Cambodia was interesting to say the least!  It's one of the poorest countries in the world, having been destroyed in wars, by the Americans, the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese.   In 1979 they literally had to start again with absolutely nothing.  The French and the above regimes have left the Cambodian people with a sense of fear and they are very unsure of themselves, even paranoid.  There is no money to repair roads or the bridges the Americans bombed 40 years ago and there is only one bridge across the river in Phnom Penh!  Their currency is 4,100 to US$1, so you can see it's all but worthless.  I found the people very friendly and respectful and the young lads to die for! lol!  I was lucky to have a cyber friend there to act as my guide and tell me so much history, that it felt like a true cultural visit.  I visited one of the killing fields, a high school in the centre of the city, but I cannot tell you about it in any detail now, as it upsets me too much to even think of it.  I took film and photos and now wish I hadn't, it haunts me.

The scale of tragedy, which has been Cambodian recent history, is mind blowing and nothing short of a Holocaust.  The Americans bombed and bombed Cambodia, so it was practically set back into the Stone Age, after promising them that they would never touch the country.  They destroyed most of the country's infrastructure, roads, bridges, air ports etc., leaving a huge vacuum for the Khmer Rouge to fill in 1975, so they found it very easy to take control of the entire country after the American surrender in Vietnam.

The Khmer Rouge then proceeded to hunt down and kill all the bureaucracy and middle class people who remained in the country.  That included all previous Government Officials, anyone who had worked for local government, all teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, factory owners, managers, bank workers, shop owners, anyone in fact who was not a simple peasant.  They closed all the schools and ordered everyone out of the cities into the countryside, on the pretext that there was to be further American bombing raids.  The Peoples' terror of the Americans was total, so they did as they were ordered and left for the relative safety of the rural areas, where they were to be enslaved. 

Anyone remaining in Phnom Penh, was systematically rounded up and taken to the Olympic Stadium in the city centre.  From there they were taken to various makeshift prisons the Khmer Rouge had created in the city's SCHOOLS, where they were routinely tortured and killed.  (They had divided all the classrooms up into 1mx2m cells).  The K.R. even encouraged students studying abroad to come home and help rebuild the country.  As they arrived at Phnom Penh airport, they were taken to the stadium and killed.

In the peaceful countryside, the rest of the people were enslaved and forced to work from 3am until 7pm daily, at gun point.  Hunger and starvation prevailed, as anyone caught eating or taking any of their produce was shot.  They were given one bowl of rice a day.  People had to survive by eating wild plants, insects, lizards, etc.  Many thousands did not survive.

After four years of this horror from 1975 - 1979, the Vietnamese Army attacked the Khmer Rouge and invaded Cambodia, in order to save the Cambodian People from this Holocaust.  So this meant several more years of war for the Cambodians and in the meantime the Holocaust continued. 

When eventually the Vietnamese won and the remnants of the Khmer Rouge ran off and peace came back to this tortured country. 

What had once been a happy, noisy, bubbling High School, was found to have been a prison and a place of torture and murder.  It is kept today just as it was found, as a museum and memorial to the many thousands who died there.

It makes me feel sick to write this, as it brings back the horrors I saw in that school, called "S21".  "S" for security, "2" the number of the prison and "1" because it was under the personal direction of "Number 1 Brother" - Phol Phot.

The World should never forget what happened in Cambodia and be mindful of what fanatical, totalitarian regimes can do.  It has left the Cambodians with collective psychological damage and to me they remain somewhat paranoid, but understandably.

However, it’s a beautiful country populated by the most beautiful people and well worth a visit.  Tourists are welcomed with open arms and Europeans are something of a novelty to them, not to mention attractive!  People will wave to you in the streets and call out “Hello!”  And this is in the capital city!  Imagine how friendly they are in the countryside!  They need our Pounds, Euros and Dollars and remember travel in Asia is very cheap for us!  So next time you’re thinking about a holiday, consider Cambodia, you won’t be disappointed!  Rich xx

Tags: Travel Lads

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