James and Jo’s south east Asia adventure

After a good sleep in the very comfortable hotel bed we had our first breakfast in Cambodia. It was a definite step up on the Saigon breakfast and varies slightly each day. Crucially for those of us that like a lie in it’s available until 10.30am!

We were picked up at midday by our guide as we were doing the essential, but morbid, tour of the killing fields and prison S21. The first stop was the killing fields and on the way there the guide gave us a history of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, including detailing the horrific methods of torture used on anyone who was arrested.

The actual killing field was a former Chinese cemetery and smaller than I expected, although it should be remembered that this was just one of a few hundred such sites across the country. Most of the killings were carried out using objects that were intended to have more benign uses such as hoes and scythes so as not to waste bullets. We viewed the memorial that is made up of tiers of skulls and bones and bought a couple of Lotus flowers from a seller at the base of the monument to place as a mark of respect to the deceased.

There was a surviving victim of the Pol Pot regime who was subjected to torture, but whose life was spared as he was a mechanic and was useful to them for fixing cars. He was selling copies of his book detailing his experiences outside the field. Jo bought a copy and he signed it.

We then went to the S21 prison, a former high school that was converted to a notorious prison under the Khmer Rouge. The ‘non-vip’ cells were maybe 1.5m x 2.0m. Being an inmate at this prison was basically a death sentence as there are only 12 known survivors and 12,000+ killed. There were hundreds of mugshots displayed of people that had been brought to the prison and individual stories of some of the individuals who were known to have been brought there. 

There were two more survivors of the regime selling their stories within the prison. One of the survivors was 95 years old and looked to be quite sprightly for his age, all the more impressive given what we had endured, including losing the sight in his left eye as a result of electrocutions. We may have been better off buying his book as it had been translated into a number of languages and was apparently quite famous, as the English in the book Jo purchased was riddled with errors.

The only meal we had prebooked before the holiday was at a restaurant called Wat Damnak, a fine dining restaurant with a 6 or 8 course tasting menu in the evening. We opted for the 8 course and had a few cocktails along the way to accompany the courses. 

It was a slightly surreal dining experience as when we arrived there was one other couple dining, who finished around the time of our fourth course. From then on we essentially had 5 staff waiting on us in the most literal sense. As they could probably go home once we were finished. I’m not sure if pre-booking was necessary as the restaurant obviously had more than enough space for us, but they may not have wanted to stay open for longer than necessary. A party of 3 did show up at one point and chat to the front of house but they didn’t dine for whatever reason.

The food was nice, if not show stopping, with the frogs legs probably the highlight. They offered to switch it to chicken for us but I’m glad we declined.