Nomad's Land: February 2019

Its been over a month since I have returned from my trip to Malaysia / Cambodia, to be honest I don’t even know where I left off.. so I’ll just wing it.

I visited the Killing fields and the S-21 torture prison when I was in Phnom Phen. It was quite an experience tp visit both.. Its difficult to even begin to put into words what it was like.. There was a 5 year period in Cambodia where the strength of the government was lower than ever partly due to the Vietnam war and a man but the name of Pol Pot (or I should say an evil sociopath piece of shit with no soul who is certainly burning in hell right now) began a communist political party called the Khmer Rouge. He led the party and brought in a few bothers and family members to completely form it. The Khmer Rouge (KR) first began by pushing all the citizens out of the big cities, namely the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Phen. They told the greater population that they needed to evacuate because the US was bombing close by in Vietnam and for safety purposes it was necessary to leave the city. In the past the US had dropped a few bombs in Cambodia accidentally due to the close proximity to Vietnam. We’ll namely talk about Phenom Phen but this happened across the country.

The people were advised to take only what they could carry and walk out of the city. With the citizens not knowing what the future held they complied. While being led out of the city by the KR the KR soldier who were trained separately and brainwashed took inventory of all the citizens. Secretly all of the Doctors, lawyers, politicians, police officers, military and basically anyone who was classified as an intellectual were taken away from the main groups of people and killed. The KR did this so no one would have power or influence over them. KR wanted complete control to do as they pleased. The remaining greater population were led to labour camps to farm rice. 95% of these people were urban city dwellers that had no idea how to farm. They were giving just enough food to survive although some died due to malnutrition and starvation. Pol pot them started to become paranoid and began to sen people to the S-21 torture prison where thousands of people were tortured and killed because they were to believed to be working with the CIA - pretty much everyone was not. 99% maybe even 100% because the outside world had no idea what was going on in Cambodia. KR would not let anyone in or out of the country at this time. 3 million people were brought to the killing fields and slaughtered. Finally after 5 years of turmoil when the Vietnam war was over Vietnamese troops entered the country, saved the remainder of the population and helped to restore a legitimate order int he country. I could go on and on about what I saw but its pretty gruesome, tons of pictures, of people who had been tortured, thousands of skulls, bones, teeth. They had a tree at the Killing fields where they would hold babies…. Babies.. by 2 legs and smash their heads against the tree.. reason being is in Cambodia they believe in retaliation - when someone does something to you or your family Cambodian people then retaliate and do twice as worse to that person or their family. We’ll move on from all of this terrible history.

After experiencing this I started to walk though Phnom Phen.. Still taking it all in and looking around just imagining the what this city and country went through. My stomach still wasn’t feeling 100% because of the little food poisoning deboggle that I had been through the few days before. I found this restaurant and ordered some soup thing with red liquid. It was out of this world, one of the best thing I’ve ever had in my life, the fusion of flavours were indescribable. I continued walking through the city, stopped and had lunch/dinner in front of the Mekong river called a friend friend from Germany and reminisced about pervious travel adventures. Tomato picking to be exact as we had went through that together in Australia. After I my meal and conversation I walked over to the edge of the river, where there was a slanted 50 foot drop which you could walk down. I sat on the ledge on top and took in all that was happening around me. There was an old man beside me that I began to talk with and feel him out. After building a bit of repport I asked him how old he was. He told me he was 60 something and then I politely asked him if he minded me asking about his time in Cambodia during the KR regime. I sat his and listened and asked and listened and asked.. It was a huge highlight of the trip being able to hear about his story, especially after faint to the S-21 torture museum and Killing fields. I was able to listen first hand to his account, how he felt.. about his family.. that were all killed. It was a very special thing to experience. I bought him some beer and we sat there for around 1-2 hours before he had to go. This was a big highlight of the trip. An educating day hearing about the atrocities that took place in the country but also a community and society that overcame their past, embraced it and focused on sharing their story. Truly special to go through.

I went to Bangkok for a few days the next day and flew home.

I’m currently sitting in the Whitehorse Airport in the Yukon waiting for my flight to go back to Vancouver. I’ve been in the Yukon for a month and am going to be home for 4 nights. I will then drive up here (5 days). I’m considering writing a mini-blog for the experiences that tale place while I’m here !

I know Josher would like to read about it :) love ya buddy. Thanks for the call the other day LOOLLL

This concludes my Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and 2 days in Bangkok trip.

It was spectacular. Next November I plan on going to Myanmar for 2.5 weeks and Thailand for 1.5 weeks.

Thanks for reading

Shaner

frog in our bathroom on an Island in Cambodia, he lived in a hole under the sink

Any picture with bones, skulls or fragments of humans is from the killing fields

Tandem bike ride in Melacca (Malaysia) and beautiful Banana in front of a hidden bar called the the Golden Shower in Georgetown Penang (Malaysia)

We slept outside on the balcony in this bed on a Cambodian Island - unreal waking up to the waves.

I actually met a man that was one of the few that survived the S-21 torture prison in Phnom Phen and then this bed is where tons of people were bolted down to and tortured..