I can't really tell you

Today was the museum and history tour. We started early and pretty soon were struck dumb. I wont say too much, because it is something that you have to really want to know about, and be prepared for.

We went to the one jail and torture centre that is a museum; there were hundreds of them. The torture is explained, there are photographs and artefacts. If you want to know more ask me when I get back.

We also went to the most famous of the hundreds of killing fields. It is a memorial park but still organic. The glass tower, so famous in photographs (one floor of clothes, nine floors of human skulls and seven floors of assorted bones) is here. The acres of land around are mass graves. Thousands of people were killed here in the most brutal and barbaric ways. The ground continually coughs up items of clothing that belonged to the people who were executed. Tiny pairs of shorts that only a toddler could have worn, bits of shoes, shirts and unidentifiable stretches of faded fabric litter the ground. There are too many to pick up. So, every month the guards and guides have a day where they go around and collect all the personal items and bones that the earth has offered up. This includes tiny baby teeth, jaw bones and the rest. We walked on pathways made of human remains covered in a thin scraping of dust. There is more, much more, but in the end we just sat in the shade and had a drink.

The one thing that is apparent is the enduring hostility to Vietnam. The defeat of Pol Pot is often explained without any reference to Vietnam at all. According to our guide, the signs, the books, the official history; the Vietnamese did defeat Pol Pot, but only so they could have Cambodia for themselves. I think our guide through the killing fields said more bad things about Vietnam than he did about the Khmer Rouge. The fear of Vietnamese annexation, which was one of the keys to the success of the KR is still palpable. I tried not to worry about it too much, but it is bugging me. I am really glad that I have read a few books about it and that I have some political history under my belt to help me understand it all.

Today is a group dinner, then we travel to Battambang by mini-bus tomorrow.