death and horror

so today we went to the killing fields. this involved a reasonably long dusty and bumpy ride in a tuk tuk to an fairly rural location. where there was a large temple / shrine type structure, with 8000 skulls encased inside it. around the area were numerous grown over pits, from which these skulls were exumed in 81. it was pretty much horrifying. the ticket brochure tells us that they're working on building a restaurant, and reconstructing some of the different buildings that would have been at the site during the khmer rouge reign. its horrifying and saddening and overwhelming, watching these people realise that their horrific and painful past can be a major tourist attraction.

from the killing fields we went to the simbiotic s-21 museum. what was once a high school became a prison of turture and horror, from whence prisoners were trucked to the killing fields to be bludgeoned to death and piled into a mass grave. theres masses of photographs - each prisoner was photographed, and the evidence of torture and beatings is everywhere.

a lady acted as our guide around the prison. she explained to us that her family had been moved out of phnom penh, and ultimately her father and brothers died from starvation.

its overwhelmingly awful. so many times through history these types of atrocities have occured, but human kind doesnt seem to be capable of learning from its mistakes.

anyway. what else can be said?


laura plans to celebrate the new year with some kind of "clubbing" experience. we shall see.