Visit to S21

Good morning book club,

It is 4:20 AM in Siem Reap, Cambodia when my alarm sounds in our 4 bed shared hostel room. The room is named “Lotus” and has two bunk beds. I commandeer the bottom bed on one of those bunks and Nicky the top bed (after all it is natural for squirrels to sleep on top of trees and grizzly bears on the ground).  Next to us a Chilean fellow that arrived the previous night is sleeping on the top bunk and the bottom bunk is presently occupied by one Julia from Brazil (we will probably cover more and her later but suffice it to say – she is also waking up and asked Nicky and I if she could tag along for the next half a day of travel.

Side bar #1

Julia was one of many travelers that during this trip decide to join Nicky and I for whatever we had in store even if we didn’t ourselves know. Within minutes of arriving in a new town, we lead random strangers into random adventures, a theme that repeated itself over and over. Organizing drinking games, orchestrating aerial drone shots on the first take with many random backpackers or day trips that included transportation or city transfers. I can only speak for myself here, but most of my friends back home see me coming down the street in my full “party mode” and go the opposite way.

In less than 9 hours, my first trip to Southeast Asia will come to an end but more importantly my traveling adventure with Nicky will also go on pause.  The next few days will be weird for me, as I quickly grew accustomed to having Nicky around and will need to readjust. Traveling with me is like dealing with a toddler in his terrible 2’s who is constantly pushing boundaries but is social and cultural adept enough to not be a burden to the squad. Both our travel styles are much more intimate than people may realize, especially if you are keen on body language and detail oriented as the narrator of this short story tends to be or if you are as emotionally fore coming and open to new experiences as Nicky is.

Examples of this could be:

• How I now know more about Nicky’s morning start up and shut down routines than even my own.
• The triggers that will annoy her, some of these I found out the hard way as I was on the receiving end.
• Her ease at approaching people and the techniques she effortless employs to quickly make people fall in love with her. Actually, not literally.
• She is like a velociraptor that needs to be fed regularly or the consequences can be severe (In contrast I’m more like a plant in need of constant hydration).
• The way her eyes shift when she is thinking critically or the way her ”1000 yard stare” is always facing to the right or straight never in another direction.

But I digress.  I felt very comfortable traveling with her and sharing really tight quarters at times. We learned a lot about each other and I will need some time to adjust to not having her around to strategize on the plan for the day. Back to our regularly scheduled program….

End of Side Bar #1

Sluggishly and half asleep we pack up, change and brush our teeth. In less than 20 minutes, Julia, Nicky and myself are out the door. Nicky deftly secures transportation and checks us out our hostel. 25 minutes later we are in Siem Reap regional airport and without any complications catch our 45 minute flight back to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh is first met up when our Cambodian adventure started, but we were so excited to catch up and party that we didn’t really do any of the highly recommended tourist attractions (chief among them “The Killing Fields and S-21”). This meant that the pressure was on to make sure we made the most of out of my last 4.5 hours in the city before starting my journey back west. No partying or mingling with strangers. Tourist stuff only. Julia, Nicky and I were on the same page and all weighed in. Ultimately, because traffic in Phnom Penh sucks and time was precious we decided in only doing S-21 and leaving the killing fields for another time.

It is another super-hot and humid day in Cambodia. You step outside of the AC and every cell in your body is begging you to back into the AC and cancel all plans. But this is not an option today, for some of us it is our last day in town. We double up on deodorant. Nicky again on transportation logistics figures out the best way to navigate the city and get us to S-21 after dropping off our things at her hostel. The plan is visit S-21, have lunch then Julia and I go back to the hostel to pick up our stuff and head to the airport to catch separate flights.

Side bar #2

When you travel with Nicky you will quickly realize one thing. She is impervious to Asian traffic, she is one with it, breathes it, understands it or just plain doesn’t care. She says her time in Nam made her this way, I don’t know.  She walks into traffic without looking like a drunken toddler or better yet She-Hulk.  And then traffic just moves around her like she is protected by a force field.

Time for a game. I’m going to assign an Avenger character to all of you, here is to hoping I don’t offend anyone beyond repair. Also, Claudia, I know you are a DC girl but Marvel is just more relevant and lends itself easily to this. Plus I already called dibs on Wonder woman if we go the DC route.

• Jenny Michelle: Ironman. Leads the Avengers and looks out after all of them. Knows how to throw a party.
• Jenn: Dr Stranger. Well educated, has all of the sagely wisdom. Deadly fighter.
• Claudia: Scarlett Witch. Powerful beyond measure. Enigmatic and introverted.
• Nicky: Hulk. I already mentioned why. She is also a forced to be reckon with drunk or sober. I recently confirmed both of these accounts. Ask me about my 4 am adventure to the Cambodian grocery store with a drunk hulk.
• I’m definitely StarLord. I have facial hair, goofy, love 80s tunes and I play music all the time. Yup.

End of Side Bar

Our mood is light in the tuk tuk on our 6 minute ride to this museum. Its hard to distinguish the streets in the city from one another. They seem like computer generated versions of each other that repeat themselves over and over with slight variations. Vehicles parked on both sides, speed bumps that are not needed because the pot holes do a great job of slowing you down. Street vendors, some type of construction, 6 restaurants and 3 bars in each side of the block, retail and repair shops, trash that seems to blend into the environment, rinse and repeat, next street.

Our eyes are eagerly scanning upcoming streets to catch our first glimpse of S-21. When we see it, you can feel our expression changing and so are our moods. The tuk tuk engines are struggling to propel the new weight of our emotions forward as driver parks us near the entrance.

Side bar #3

A little bit about S-21 and the Khmer Rouge:

S-21 is the name of a secret prison that existed in Phnom Penh from 1976 to 1979. It was one of more than 60 similarly run facilities the Khmer Rouge ran across Cambodia. S-21 has a more ominous feel to it than I expected, probably because it used to be a school. This is the most notorious one of them all for several reasons and it is certainly the stuff of horror movies. The thought of it now sends chills down my spine, something very few things can evoke in me.

I will provide some links that can better provide the historical information of Cambodia. I didn’t know a lot about the indochina conflicts prior to my visit here but did leave the area with a greater appreciation for what humans had to endure in that part of the world.

For now, let’s establish the following:

• Years of poor leadership and civil unrest in Cambodia made way for a new revolutionary party to assume control. The political face of the group was an individual called Pol Pot.
• This new regime, referenced here as the Khmer Rouge, were radicals that wanted to restructure Cambodian society and used mass genocide during their short time in power to eliminate almost a third of the country’s population in secrecy.  They displaced everyone from their cities and forced them to work in the fields.
• They targeted everyone who was educated and wiped out their entire families (children included) under the belief that they were all traitors or would become in the future.
• They were meticulous with record keeping. They photographed and extracted biographies of everyone they rounded up. They kept detailed records on them and recorded all the interrogations.

End of side bar

Entrance is 6 USD but for an additional 3 USD you get the pre recorded audio tour. Always get the audio tour at this or any museum, unless you are a subject matter expert on the topic. We got our tickets and players and walked into the courtyard of the school turned into prison.

Within 90 seconds of us first stepping into S-21 the day goes from scorching hot and bright to an overexposed grey filled with rain clouds that loom nearby. I wish I was writing this for dramatic effect, but alas I am not. It is almost like the fabric that connects us to nature is now entuned to our emotions and changes it to match it. 20 minutes later, the rain would force us into the different buildings.

So here we are. Picture yourself standing the in the corner of a rectangle facing into the space inside it. Along each of the narrow ends there is 1 three-story building that spans the whole length of the rectangle. On one of the longer sides, not the one closest to the corner you are standing on, but the longer side that is across from you are 2 three-story buildings. That’s 4 buildings in total lining up 3 of the sides of the rectangle. These are filled with class rooms. The rest of the rectangle is a big courtyard with a kids recreational area and throughout you can find evenly spaced mango trees and is mostly green. Flowers are blooming this time a year and there are plenty of benches.

It could be a good place for a light snack and quick read, but its not. The perimeter of this rectangle is a 9-foot wall with spaghetti of barb wire intended to keep people from ever escaping. All the buildings have been retrofitted with the same treatment. Bars on windows, barbwire everywhere, exposed brick, greys and dull orange rust on pipes for a bit of contrast.

My mind races to process the idea of both kids playing and learning here and also the idea of free citizens kept against their will here as well. The construct of life has to have a sense of irony, if the same place that was once used to improve quality of life and make better humans can be well suited (after some minor modifications) to dehumanize individuals and wipe out entire lineages.

Side Bar #4

We are now well into this essay. You are probably wondering…. Why are you sharing all of this with us? Trying to ruin my day? Certainly not my intent. It is hard to write this out and not have it be emotionally charged. There is a point to it. You can spare yourself additional details and jump to Side Bar #5 or read on or stop altogether. I write often, many times without a specific audience in mind. Sometimes to an audience but I never send it. Maybe you will never see this one.

End of Side Bar

So here we are again. Inside this rectangle. This space designed for growth but quickly converted to serve on purpose: decay society. People were forced here by the truck loads daily. Photographed, biographies of them extracted, then stripped of their clothes, assigned a number and processed into imprisonment.

The facility was top secret and ran by some really sick bastards. The director overseeing the facility named Comrade Duch. A piece of work this guy was.

Anyone with soft hands or eye glasses is viewed as a threat and as a result is sent to prison. Then the Khmer Rouge soldiers torture you until they extract a false confession implicating friends and family (so their murder is also “justified”) and then you and everyone implicated is sent to the killing for mass murder.

Let’s say you teach arts a school in the country side. They invite you to a better paying job in the city and offer you and your family to be transported. Upon arrival you go to S-21 and you know how the rest plays out. This happened more than 20,000 times at S-21 alone. 

Less than a dozen people processed thru this facility survived. That’s insane. You were guaranteed to die once inside those walls.

The vibe and energy in this place is unreal. There are at least another 120 visitors in the museum and everyone is feeling it. You have a map and you follow from one number to the next listening to the stories and descriptions of the events that took place here. From the first audio you can tell you are in for a heavy emotional ride. The narrator mentions several times the need to step away and rest your emotions throughout the tour.

Julia, Nicky and I are doing the tour separate but together. Often, we found ourselves in the same room but in our private spaces. Most times in different areas of the same building. Experiencing the events in our own personal space but close enough to support each other with a glance that said “I feel you” or “can you believe this?”

And like I previously mentioned, everyone in the area was impacted by this. I saw people sobbing and some flat out crying. The stories were so tangible they reached out and touched you. A building completely dedicated to torturing. Even the playground was converted for torture. All the beds and artifacts still there.

2 buildings had nothing but photographs on the first floor. Thousands of prisoners staring directly at you. They probably had no idea what was in store for them. One particular story of a prisoner at S-21 hit home more than others for us non-Cambodians. The story of a New Zealand traveler who was 27 at the time and sailing around the world with his buddy. When they went into port, they were captured and taken to S-21 were a fake confession was extracted and they were executed. All the documents, pictures and confession transcription still exist. The traveler must have known his situation was dire and, in his confession, he left messages to his family and even shows some humor by confessing that he reports to one Coronel Sanders from the Army of Kentucky (Fried Chicken) and other pop culture references.

We took our time and were very thorough of our exploration, Nicky and I often exchanged interesting things we observed or heard. We learned at the beginning of the audio tour that this site was more than a memorial or museum and that each visitor carried with themselves a responsibility to remember what took place here and ensuring that similar acts would not happen again. A task that I think both Nicky and I took seriously then and even now.

In the end, that evil regime fell. Their plan was horrible and poorly executed, doomed to failure since inception. When they lost control of the city, they fled in a rush. Leaving most of their records of the events at S-21 intact. Most of the leadership of the Khmer Rouge were found or turned themselves in and underwent world trials for the crimes committed.

Pol Pot never owned up to it citing only when he was captured “mistakes were made” which both Nicky and I found extremely unfulfilling and the director of the prison repented, converted to Christianity ( a religion that allows you to repent for your sins) but ultimately was given life in prison.

The experience zapped my emotional energy almost to zero. I’m glad we didn’t do this at the beginning of the trip of rather the end. The visit was educational and emotional. It was also frustrating and disappointing. The stories compounded with each other and painted a very sad pictures of the conditions there. In conclusion, it was a good experience and I was glad Nicky was there instead of having to do it myself.

Side Bar #5

There were several stories in the audio tour that were feel good and positive. They gave the visitor a sense of redemption. Like the story of a car mechanic that was sent there for execution, but they saw he could repair typewriters, so they kept him alive instead.

Let’s tie it all together. Nicky and I were lucky enough to be there on a day and time when he was there. And we shared a brief moment with him and shortly there after Nicky bought his book.

Moments before that interaction. An older Cambodian gentleman waved me over to where he was sitting. He interrupted the end of the audio bite I was listening, so I was a little annoyed but needed a break. I pulled off my headphones and reluctantly walked over wondering “what is he going to try to sell me?” He introduced himself by his complete name and pointed to a picture of a family of 5 kids and a mother surrounded by Khmer Rouge soldiers. He pointed to the oldest of the kids and said, “that is me in the picture, I was 9”. I was floored and looked around for Nicky and found her sitting in a bench sharing a moment with Julia.  I looked back at the survivor and realized it was just me and him talking. He told me about how he survived, his mothers last messages and the last time they saw her.  This was his 10^th day back at S-21. He said he had no intention of ever returning and that his younger brother will not step foot in the facility. He said that after many years he felt an obligation to share his story in person. I don’t remember when the tears started I just remember concentrating on every word he said and the expression of pain in his face. Of course, I bought the book and introduced Nicky to survivor so she could hear his story.

So that was the point to this story that was intended to be short but somehow found more sentences in it. I have in my possession two autographed books that can be added to our book collection. We shall pass them around to those interested in reading them.

Sorry if my writing dampens your mood. Just wanted to share a little piece of our Cambodian adventure. Not everything Nicky and I do revolves around being really really good looking and partying. I mean it’s a fair assumption.

End of side Bar