Pol Pot’s bathroom and other remains of the Khmer Rouge

That’s the title of a new series of photos and videos I posted on Flickr.

In Cambodia much more remains of the Khmer Rouge than the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng prison, the two well-known and horrifying reminders of their brutal reign.
In Anlong Veng and Pailin, Khmer Rouge strongholds along the Thai border long after they lost control of the country as a whole, houses of top leaders Pol Pot, Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan can still be found. With difficulty sometimes: see the ‘live’ videos of my search for Pol Pot’s house outside Anlong Veng in the forests of the Dangrek Mountains.

At Khieu Samphan’s house in Pailin an awkward surprise: his family still lives there. Embarrassed I didn’t take photos.

As to Pol Pot the places where he was tried and cremated can also still be identified.

Some of the enormous water reservoirs the Khmer Rouge built using forced labor still exist, as does a now deserted airport built during their reign, including in its vicinity hidden silo’s and tunnels, signs maybe of the Khmer Rouge’s paranoia.

And what happend to the people who were part of the Khmer Rouge? Apart from the top leaders no one was tried. Many of their former soldiers were recruited into the Cambodian government army that they previously fought against. In an ironic twist of history they now defend Cambodia against their former supporters the Thai army, in a conflict over border temples that both countries claim.

See photos and videos here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pieterneele/albums/72157664483775632

Or if the link doesn’t work click ‘Photos’ in the menu at the left and then ‘Albums’.

Extreme Cambodia

pieterneele | 18 February, 2015 13:22

The stunning architecture of the Angkor period. The horrific Khmer Rouge reign of terror. Cambodia is extreme. The sheer magnitude of the temple ruins is incomprehensible. So is the scale of the brutality.

As if there are no constraints on the people, no limit on good and no limit on evil.

I have often visited Angkor Wat and the many temples in the surrounding area. Each time I stood in awe. I have often visited the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, and Tuol Sleng, their prison and torture centre in Phnom Penh. Each time I was appalled.

This time my co-traveller and me wanted to go to Pailin and Anlong Veng, strongholds of the Khmer Rouge for twenty years after their brutal reign. And to the remote Angkorian temples that are scattered around Cambodia’s north. Among them the three disputed temples on the Thai border that recently still led to armed conflict.

Unexpectedly our focus on the Khmer Rouge and our focus on the temple ruins would result in an encounter that gave insights in both.