One of the things which has made up a major part of my life has been academic debate. I was on the debate team in high school, in college and coached high school for three years after I graduated. During that time I read volumes about almost every subject you can imagine.

In debate, you are forced to take both sides of an issue. You can become very detached about the subjects you research, and in all the years I was involved in debate there was really only one subject that really influenced me on a personal level. That was the genocide in Cambodia. My knowledge of what happened in Cambodia from 1975-79 wasn’t something I learned about when I got to SE Asia. (I will not outline in detail what happened there. There are plenty of resources online where you can learn more about it. Suffice it to say that between 1 to 2 million people, out of a population of 8 million, were killed in a span of four years through famine and outright murder.)

It is a sad commentary on a capital city of a country, when the biggest tourist draw revolves around mass killings. Sadly, that is the main attraction in Phnom Penh. The guesthouse I stayed at played the movie The Killing Fields every other night, and a documentary on the Toule Seng prison on the nights in between.

I wasn’t sure how I’d react to visiting the Killing Fields. I’ve never been to places such as Auchwitz before, so it was a totally unique experience for me. What happened in Cambodia has never quite stuck in the public’s conscious like Holocaust. In fact, one of the odd things I found myself doing (and I know I’m not alone in this) was trying to make comparisons between what happened in Cambodia and what happened in Germany. It doesn’t take long to realize how foolish it is trying to compare or rank degrees of evil, especially when the monstrosities you are talking about are so great.

When you visit the Killing Fields, you are struck by how underwhelming it is. Prior to gaining its notoriety, it was an orchard. There is only one permanent structure there; a large pagoda filled with the skulls and bones of the victims found in the mass graves. The closer you get, you begin to realize the enormity of what is inside. Piles of human skulls, many of which have holes in the top of the head.

The area around the pagoda is so cratered, it looks as if it were bombed. The craters are the remains of the open mass graves were victims were left. Up to a hundred people would be dumped into a single hole. They system for killing people was very organized, like what you saw under the Nazis. Records and photos were kept. Unlike the Nazis, they didn’t build elaborate camps. Bullets were deemed too expensive, so most people were killed by hand via strangulation, blunt weapons or blades.

I didn’t go through phases of grief, sadness and astonishment. I quickly went directly to being pissed off. The more I learned about the events before and after the Khmer Rouge rise to power, the more pissed off I became. The details surrounding that is another post.

After the Killing Fields, my tuk tuk driver took me to the Toul Seng prison. Like the Killing Fields which turned a simple orchard into den of madness, the Toul Sleng prison used to be a Phonm Penh high school. This was where prisoners were taken for interrogation before they were taken to the Killing Fields. Of the over 17,000 people who were taken to Toul Sleng, only seven are known to have survived. (The official name the Khmer Rouge used for the prison was Security Prison 21 or S-21 for short).

Toul Seng was a torture center. It is hard to call it anything else. Prisoners were chained to the floor and many of the school rooms were bricked up to create more, smaller cells. Some of the rooms had prisoners chained to the floor as if it were the deck of a slave ship. There were hundreds of photos on display of the victims who came through the prison. It was chilling to look at them knowing that they were no different than the people you meet on the street, and that every one of them was tortured and murdered in cold blood.

Electrocution was a preferred method of torture in Toul Sleng, but they hardly stopped there. A bar in the courtyard of the school originally built for exercises was turned into a gallows and some inmates were hung. A painting in the prison also depicts water boarding.

I can’t help but think what Cambodia would be like today if it wasn’t for the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia is far behind its neighbors economically and has a high amount of corruption. Most of the educated class was killed, actually targeted because they were intellectuals, by the Khmer Rouge. It made it very difficult to rebuild when the people who ran things were systematically eliminated.

In the movie The Killing Fieldsd, Sam Waterson’s character said that “Cambodia was a country he had learned to love and pity.” I think that sums it up quite well.

It has been raining almost the entire time I’ve been here. The last few days I have been totally lazy. I’ve been on an anti-vacation. When you travel for a living, an anti-vacation is when you stay in your room, do nothing, and watch TV. Oh yes, and the World of Warcraft expansion came out and I took advantage of it. (I’m level 74 now thank you very much).

However, it is time to get moving. The really interesting parts of Vietnam are up in the Hoi An/Hue region in the center of the country where I’m going next. I assume I’ll be spending the next several days in tourist mode and taking photos before I head up to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay.

I got some new items for the contest which I’ll be showing off in a new video I’ll shoot when I get to Hoi An. Hopefully, it wont be as wet there.

The bus arrived after dark. I was able to whip out my trusty iPod Touch and found a place to stay on the cheap just a few blocks from the bus station.

A funny story from Mui Ne on the subject of guidebooks. I was about to leave my guesthouse a few days ago when a European couple walked in with their backpacks asking if there were any rooms available. The woman at the desk said “Yes, $20 a night”. The woman of the couple instantly pulls out her Lonely Planet and says “It says here $10-15 per night”. The woman at the counter responded “That was four years ago. We put in air conditioning and internet since then.” The man responded “but the book is from last year!”. I chuckled to myself and made a mental note to put that on the website.

When I arrived in Mui Ne, I walked around for five minutes, then went to one of the many stands which sold tours. I asked if they could get me a room for $20 a night with internet, and they said yes. They called around in found a place in 5 minutes and drove me there on their motorbike. Total cost to me: nothing and I got free transportation. They guys who found me the room got a finders fee, the guesthouse got a customer and I found a room. Everyone wins…..except the guidebook publishers.

I was also able to get some great photos of the sand dunes near Mui Ne. I hope to have those up later today. I was totally caught up with my photos when I left Mui Ne. That felt good.

The countryside from Mui Ne to Nha Trang was very beautiful. The bus made one stop at a restaurant which catered to buses. I’ve seen similar establishments all over SE Asia. As I was walking around, I took out my iPod to listen to some podcasts. One of the kids working there, I assume part of the family that owned the restaurant, got all excited and said “Is that an iPod Touch?!?” He knew everything about it, down the the specs, but had never seen one in person before. He offered to buy it from me, but I had to decline. Besides, I’m not sure it would do him any good without iTunes and it is tied to my account.

It is raining as I write this. When I left the hotel there was a minor flood on the street out front. The water was calf deep. There isn’t general flooding here, that part of the street is just in a slight dip. It was pretty neat to walk downstairs and see the street filled with water.

I think I’ll only be here for about two days. The things I really want to see are up near Hoi An and Hue, so spending more time here than necessary will just slow me down.

I saw some images on the Boston Globe that were that large and I really liked it. I think most images look better when you can see it in a larger size.

If you click while in RSS or email, you will see the image, but it will show it to you in a new browser window, just like you were clicking on any other link.

So click away and let me know what you think.