Phnom Penh is basically known to foreigners for two primary attractions – the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, and the killing fields. These chronicle the history of one of the world’s bloodiest campaigns of violence, a genocide in which some say three million people perished at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. We headed to Tuol Sleng first.

We were going to need a moto taxi, and getting one was not going to be a problem. As soon as we left the guesthouse, about a dozen of them instantly materialised. I was getting a little fed up with the constant hassle everywhere. I found that I was starting to become quite inventive with my answers, to match the persistence of the hawkers.

“Taxi”
“No thanks”
“Smoke”
“Only when I’m on fire”
“Flower”
“Allergic”
“Girl”
“Already got two, and they’re bad enough thanks”

Fortunately in this case Emily was doing the negotiating, and soon we had struck a deal for two bikes. Flying through Phnom Penh on the back of a dodgy bike over what are optimistically referred to as roads, I considered whether this was covered on my travel insurance. Probably. But in any case, once you get your balance and stop fearing for your life it’s actually both an enormous amount of fun and a very effective means of transport.

The story of the Khmer Rouge makes for sickening reading. In 1970, Cambodia was a hereditary monarchy, led by King Norodom Sihanok, whose neutral stance over the Vietnam conflict made him unpopular with the United States. The CIA backed a military coup while the King was overseas, which succeeded in delivering General Lon Nol to power. Cambodia was thus drawn into the Vietnam War, allied with the Americans.

However, the war made the regime extremely unpopular with the Cambodian people, who were seeing huge military losses and getting weary of US bombings of North Vietnamese sheltering in Cambodia. By 1975 the Khmer Rouge had been in existence for over 20 years, but now with the support of North Vietnam and the exiled King, they were able to march into Phnom Penh and depose the government of Lon Nol.

Their ideology was possibly the most extreme concept of government ever attempted. A combination of Maoism, anti-colonialism and xenophobia, in practice it led to a policy of clearing the cities, and putting the entire population to work on community farms. Intellectuals, identified by smooth hands or the wearing of glasses, were brought back into the abandoned cities and imprisoned, to be tortured and eventually executed.

The Khmer Rouge regime persisted until 1979, when Vietnam, now ruled by the victorious North, invaded. A former supporter of the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam had become tired of the border clashes and ceaseless tide of refugees fleeing Cambodia. The Vietnamese-imposed government ruled until 1993, when UN sponsored elections brought a modern coalition government to power.

In four years of rule, the Kymer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of between ten and twenty five percent of the population. The mass slaughter by a government of its own people was virtually unprecedented and later termed ‘autogenocide’

The prison in Phnom Penh, where the intellectuals, political opponents and other adversaries of the Khmer Rouge were held, is a former high school. After its conversion it was named “S-21” (’S’ for ‘Security Office’), and after the end of the Khmer Rouge regime, it became the “Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum”.

The buildings were arranged around a central courtyard, each with three floors, and balconies on the courtyard side. It was easy to imagine it as a school. All the rooms were pretty much the same size – formerly classrooms, but while some had been furnished with a single metal bed, and some remained empty, others had been divided into much smaller ‘cells’, using either brick or wood dividers. The rooms that featured a single bed would have been used for torture, or the accommodation of important prisoners. Those that were empty would have been simply stuffed with people, 50 to a room, all with their feet locked to a bar, forcing them to lie in rows.

At 10am, we saw the movie that was screening in one of the converted classrooms, about the Khmer Rouge and the use of S.21. It was a French production, and for the most part very good, choosing to focus on one girl and her story, rather than just reeling off statistics, shocking though they are. The girl concerned was imprisoned at S.21, along with her husband, although neither had any idea that the other was being held. Both were executed at the killing fields south of the city.

After the film, we took in several of the exhibitions – one showed all the photographs that the prison authorities would take of the inmates on arrival, another featured paintings by a survivor, depicting the conditions and torture methods. There was little reason for the torture, everyone would end up dead anyway, and they had nothing to tell. Faded but poignant graffiti adorned the wall of one cell:

Those who chose to forget history are destined to repeat it

We reached the entrance to the museum and an army of waiting moto drivers instantly perked up. Back in negotiating mode, Emily stuck a deal involving two motos and three destinations for $6, a fair rate considering the number of miles involved. We were now heading for the “Killing Fields”, at a place called Choeung Elk, 15km to the south of Phnom Penh, where the prisoners of S.21 were brought to be put to death. The Khmer Rouge exterminated 17,000 people here.

The road was dusty, bumpy and in places would have been impassable in a normal car. On arrival, it was bright and sunny, and the place didn’t seem to have the air of hostility that I might have expected. However, once we picked up a guide and began to tour the area, the horror of the site became painfully real. Although the main grave sites are fenced and covered with wooden shelters, the paths are streaked with what look like small white rocks, but are actually human bone fragments. Piles of them are everywhere. At the end of the tour we passed a tree that the executioners used for small children and babies. The child was picked up by his or her feet, and swung round to crack their skull on the trunk of the tree. They were then thrown into the pit, on top of all the other bodies. Bullets were rarely used – they were considered too expensive.

Later many of the soldiers that administered the executions at Choeung Elk were themselves executed, as Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, became increasingly paranoid. Death was simply the answer to everything.

The guide was excellent. He was a computer science graduate, but there are no computer companies in Phnom Penh that have jobs for skilled graduates. In the meantime he is working at the Killing Fields, conducting tours and improving his English in the hope that when companies do start to move into Cambodia, he will be ready for them.

Back in town, we arrived at the Royal Palace. A different world from the dark history of the morning, we were to spend the afternoon taking in the opulence of the royalty. But first, lunch.

Being formerly a French colony, the Cambodians have a lot to thank them for. No wait. Decent sandwiches are pretty much the only thing for which Cambodia should be thankful to the French. Apart from that the cheese eating surrender monkeys also gave them an inability to drive properly or queue sensibly, a socialist education system that produced madmen such as Pol Pot, and a complete lack of any national infrastructure that makes most of the country virtually inaccessible. Nice baguettes though.

The palace was very extravagant, with exquisite décor and magnificent exteriors. The throne hall, use only for coronations, weddings and funerals, was breathtaking. Not a single space was spared a treatment of lavish carving, painting, or gilding. The nearby silver pagoda is less impressive as a structure, but has a floor of solid silver and a jade budda statue which reminds me of a similar one in one of the main temples in Bangkok.

As we came out of the Silver Pagoda, the rain erupted. Rain is quite an event in Asia – you don’t often get rainy days, in fact when it rains it usually doesn’t last very long. But in that time the sheer amount of water that can fall from the sky is stunning. Five seconds out in it and you’re drenched. So we waited under the generous eaves of the Pagoda until it eased, and then made a dash for the gift shop. I needed a notebook in which to write my journal, and Emily wanted postcards of the palace, since we weren’t allowed to take photos.

The last usable hours of the day were spend at one of the main covered markets in the city, since in any given day the girls had to get their fix of shopping. But it was interesting enough and I picked up a few cheap DVDs.