Day Two (Dec 29): Killing Fields and Phnom Da

By Goldie Aronson

Today started off early and somber. We loaded the bus at 7 am and drove 35 minutes to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. Once we arrived at the Killing Fields memorial we were guided through the grounds by our guide Long. We heard his family’s story and the stories behind the piece of land which we were exploring. (note from Dr. Romeyn: We learned that there were about 300 "killing fields" across Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge tortured and executed its people, but this site was one of the largest and deadliest) We were given the ability to walk around the memorial on our own for a few minutes and reflect on what we just saw. Many of us drew comparisons to other genocides, such as the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide.

We learned that even small children were killed

Many of Long's family members were killed, but his parents miraculously survived. Educated people and professionals were especially targeted. His father had been a school teacher, but lied and told the soldiers he was a barber. When he was able to give the soldiers a good haircut, they let him live.

Honoring the dead with flowers and incense

This memorial contains skulls of some of the victims.

We then loaded up our bus and drove for about an hour until we took a pit stop to try some interesting foods. For the most part, each of us tried roasted frog and red ants in vinegar along with two exotic fruits. We were all surprised by these foods and didn’t seem to dislike them. 

Sampling roasted frog and red ants.

After this fun pit stop, we drove another hour to load 4 or 5 person boats that we would take to a village. We were on these boats for 45 minutes passing fishermen and local people boating, working, or playing in the water. After these 45 minutes on the boat, we got to this small village and began to hike to the top of a hill where we found an ancient temple with a great view. We were then greeted by many children and we immediately bonded with them. We gave them soaps, tee-shirts and small toys which we brought with us as donations and our small gifts made them so happy. After this, we boarded the boats again and once we came back to where we started, we ate lunch at a table on the water. They served us local dishes which pushed each of this out of our comfort zones. For the last time of the day, we got on the bus and drove 2 hours to get back to the hotel. We are now resting and plan to go see a dance show and get dinner tonight.

Boat trip to Phnom Da

This temple has survived for 600 years.

Making friends with the local children.

Kieran brought tee-shirts to give the local boys.

PS:  Dance Show was great!