With a 15:00 flight from Kuala Lumpur, 2 people are going for 175 dollars.We are going to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, where the Pol-Pot regime once ruled.
Since we got our visas from Istanbul for 25 dollars (new fee is 37$ online visa), we go to the hotel by taxi without delaying at the airport.. American dollars are accepted everywhere in Cambodia, but you’d better get them in cash before you go.. When we forgot to change the money, we said what should we do, we can change it at the airport, but when the exchange office at the airport was not broken, the taxi driver stopped at a gas station on the way and both our money was broken.. We stay at the King Grand Boutique Hotel, where we make our hotel from booking.com, for 25 dollars per person per night.. Our hotel had 2 pools, one in the garden and on the terrace.. It was a hotel in a magnificent location 5 minutes from the royal palace. I guess I understand a lot from these hotel choices.. Since we only have 1 full day, we arrange a taxi for the next day to take us to the Tuol Sleng torture center and the Choueung Ek – Killing Fields killing fields.. We settle into our room and throw ourselves into the streets as we change.. Orkun is doing his evening sports right on the road
We are not hungry like that, we are entering the road immediately we don’t know what we’re going to eat, so the waiter suggests that we should eat Amok.. It was one of the most popular foods.. Even though Orkun doesn’t prefer it, I order right away.. It has fish and chicken. Is it cooked from a banana leaf with a mixture of coconut milk, eggs, spices?. I loved the banana leaf while eating it.
I think it would be useful to tell the history of Cambodia and the Pol-Pot period first;
Government and administration of Cambodia and Vietnam lands belonged to France in 1864. Afterwards, the people of Cambodia come under the rule of King Sihanouk.. Meanwhile, due to the ongoing war between Vietnam and America, Sihanouk flees to Beijing, the capital of China.. With the escape of the king, the communist guerrilla rule begins, which calls itself the Khmer Rouge. The leader of the Khmer Rouge, that is, the main actor, is Pol Pot. “New people, new people”, which is the thought system of the Khmers, begins to be implemented without delay.. Namely; they start by evacuating the cities, everyone who is educated is killed, all the libraries, banks and similar places in the city are burned. They force them to be.
Not only do they demolish people’s places of worship, they even smash Buddha statues.. Because they believe that worshiping and having a family poison people.
People whom they have forced to become peasants have been brought into the city. They start working in rice fields under the control of soldiers for nearly 20 hours a day.. Employees are only allowed 10 days off.. All of these soldiers have been brainwashed with a total focus on killing people.. Psychological pressures are applied to the workers, such as whether you lived or died, what does it matter?. And the soldiers who killed so many people who made these oppressions were at a young age.
Once the worker got sick or got tired, this is considered a valid reason for his death.. These people, who are fed with a handful of rice every 2 days, die from the epidemic disease caused by hunger and thirst.. The dead/killed ones are thrown into the pits dug around the rice fields en masse.
The soldiers who do not want to spend too much bullets continue to kill brutally with the most primitive methods and with many different primitive torture tools.. After 1977, so many people were brought to the camp that because there was no time to kill so many people, they were thrown into the dug pits and poured poison on them.
This continued until 1975-1979. A total of 2 million people died over the course of four years.. They prepared their own end after the Khmer Rouge’s attack on Vietnam.
The regime brought to the country by Pol-Pot, who was educated in Paris, lasted for 4 years. It took the country back 40 years.
Our first stop is these fields outside the city (20 minutes away from the city), where thousands of people were tortured to death.. We pay 3 dollars per person at the entrance and take our tickets and earphones and start visiting the numbered places in order.
When the bones and clothes of those tortured come out on the ground with the rain, they are collected and put in glass boxes on certain fields of the fields.
After seeing these, it’s hard to even think about the massacre that took place here 40 years ago. enough to make him feel weird. There were 129 mass graves.. Most of them were exhumed and 8,000 skulls were found.. These skulls found are exhibited in the monument located at the entrance of the field, in separate sections according to the age of the people killed.
