Story: Travel is not Always Fun

Travel is not always fun.

It is not always full of light-hearted, sunny experiences. Sometimes there is a different goal. The trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, had a purpose; to understand the past, and see first hand what this tiny, lush country has endured. I went to see the Killing Fields and the S-21 Museum. Pol Pot and his regime, the Khmer Rouge, were responsible for a mass genocide of over 2,000,000 deaths from execution, starvation, and overwork. From 1975 to 1979, the population of Cambodia decreased by 25%.

The Killing Fields, a mass gravesite, is 18 km outside of Phnom Penh. A monument full of victims’ skulls has been erected at the site in memory of the killings. There were approximately 20,000 people buried at the site in mass graves; most of them were doctors, lawyers, military leaders, teachers, women and children. Pol Pot’s peasant-run society targeted educated leaders of Cambodia to torture and murder. If you take time to look at the skull monument, you can feel the complete tragedy of loss. It is deflating.

The S21 prison, now called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, is located in Phnom Penh. It used to be a high school prior to April 1975 however it was turned into a prison and torture chamber during the war. You could see that this was a building that was conflicted. This one-time school for children, full of desks and optimism, had been turned into a place where there was no hope. Make-shift prison cells were erected and school walls torn down. The Khmer Rouge kept records of who was sentenced at S21 by taking pictures of each prisoner as they arrived. One can walk around the eerie prison, but until you look into the eyes of the men, women, and children do you really feel the impact of this tragic time in history.

Travel is not always fun.