A tourist walked to see the photographs of the prisoners who had entered the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Credit photo: AP / Heng Sinith
Sightseeing in Cambodia is not only limited to the Angkor Wat, a magnificent Buddhist temple, but also attractions with dark history that lies east of the country.
Cruelty group of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in the 1970s left a deep wound for the citizens Cambodia to this day. But the legacy became a tourist attraction, especially for those who like history.
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
I started my trip with a visit to this museum, which is approximately one hour drive from Phnom Penh International Airport. I arrived at their destination at around three, so still have about two hours to explore the place.
At first I thought the Tuol Seng is just an ordinary museum, which many also found in other countries, but it did not. This place presents something quite different.
Tuol Sleng was once a high school in 1975 turned into a prison called Security-21 or S-21. Reportedly there are about 17 to 20 thousand of innocent Cambodians and some foreigners who had been imprisoned here. And of all people detained, only seven people who survived until the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown.
Entering the complex Tuol Sleng, still not seeing anything different until I approached one of the buildings. On the wall seen a sign prohibiting guests laughing and joking. I also entered. It's hard to express what I felt inside the building. The school has been turned into torture camps.
classrooms filled by various means of torture, iron chains, while the window I can see the high-wired fence of iron. Other spaces have been converted into cells measuring 1x1 meters. Bloodstains are still visible everywhere.
For me, and I'm sure for other visitors, signs are prohibited laugh is useless. See what's inside, it is impossible for us to laugh and joke. The place is like absorbing happiness anyone who visited. If allowed to borrow JK Rowling's imagination, located in Tuol Sleng like to be near dementors!
In another room we see the various pictures of faces. The official S-21 photographed every prisoner who entered the prison. All with a blank expression. As if their gaze implies that they know will not live much longer. And before death must have been tortured beyond the limits of humanity.
The tour guide explained that I lease dark history of the country. He tells his own experiences, how his father and older brother were arrested Khmer Rouge army and never returned. He also tells about the babies who cry that is thrown away by the warden of the S-21 into the barbed wire.
One of the most prominent in this place is a map skeleton, ie a map of Cambodia made of 300 human skulls. In other places the prisoners used clothes piled into one. Photographs and paintings that depict the torture of innocent people on the wall. Somehow, even after decades of rancid smell of blood still smelled.
The sun began to sink, visitors stayed a little. As soon as I finish the tour to go down to the page. At the very least, the atmosphere in the open air are less dire than in the living-room that smelled blood. Outside, it is still a lot of torture device used by the wardens S-21. One is the barrel-large barrel standing in line.
In the past, the students use water in a barrel to wash the face. However, when this place turned into a prison, officials built a mast over the barrel-barrel. Prisoners will be hung upside down, with head immersed in water.
ended my tour that day. My journey peek dark history of Cambodia will continue in 'the killing fields' Choeung Ek, in subsequent writings.