Khmers have placed offerings at Pol Pot's cremation site.
The view of the river around Ta Mok's house, now used by locals to bathe and for their cattle.
The mural of Angkor Wat inside Ta Mok's house, near Anlong Veng.Friday, February 13, 2009
Illawarra Mercury (Australia)
He is responsible for the death of at least one million Cambodians during one of the most brutal revolutions in history.
So when I visited the cremation site of Pol Pot, the leader of the radical Khmer Rouge, I was shocked when I saw a freshly cut mandarin placed at the site as an offering to his spirit.
The fruit had not even begun to dry out in the fierce Cambodian heat.
"They ask him for good luck,'' my moto driver, Dan, explained.
"Do they still like Pol Pot?" I asked, not quite believing that I had reason to ask such a question.
"Yes, they still like (him).''
Pol Pot's ashes are buried on the site where he lived leading up to the election of the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, and until 1979, when it was defeated by the Vietnamese.
It is just outside Anlong Ven, a small town about three hours north of Siem Reap and the ancient temple of Angkor Wat.
His house was destroyed by those who suffered during his torturous reign over the country, but his cremation site has since been beautified from the pile of rubble and old tyres that once marked it. It is now sheltered by a wooden hut and a statue of Buddha has been erected.
His second house, used to meet with his comrades (Pol Pot only called the opposition soldiers), is a few kilometres away and we returned to our motorbikes to take the remote path that leads there.
Along the way, we passed Cambodian soldiers waiting in the forest in anticipation of an invasion from Thailand, which is less than 1km away. The Thais have made a recent attempt to claim one of the country's ancient temples, Preah Vihear, about 200km from Anlong Ven, and the nation is now on full alert.
Landmine warning signs also dot the side of the path - a bush toilet stop could become deadly.
Dan told me when he first visited Pol Pot's cremation site in 2003 it was surrounded by landmines, which have now been cleared by an NGO project.
We arrived safely at Pol Pot's second house, a single cement room now covered in the names of tourists and the dates that they visited.
It is nowhere near as lavish as the house of Ta Mok, the regime's military leader. My friend Jill and I visited Ta Mok's house when we arrived in Anlong Ven two days earlier.
His residence included three two-storey wooden buildings with decorated floor tiles and beautiful murals depicting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and Preah Vihear. The wreck of an old truck used by the men to transport prisoners still lies in the garden and the tower communications system also remains.
The river that Ta Mok built for protection around his home still holds water, although all the trees have drowned. From the window of one of the buildings, I watched a local family bathe in the water and two farmers herd their cattle along its bank.
Khmer also come here to pray in front of a Buddha statue. I cannot comprehend how they can pray in such a haunting place - or how they find peace at the home of one of the men who is responsible for the deaths of so many of their own. Perhaps it is for that reason that they come here. Are they seeking peace from the past?
A steady flow of tourists visit the Pol Pot and Ta Mok (he died in jail in 2006) sites almost thirty years after the fall of the regime. Most are Cambodians or Thais, Dan said. Jill and I are the only Western foreigners in Anlong Ven at the moment, he claimed.
Dan and our other moto driver, Jacky, who has just moved to the town from Phnom Penh in an attempt to benefit from the growing number of tourists heading here, were more than happy to share their stories with us.
Both men lost family members during the Khmer Rouge regime. Dan was just three years old when the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and he and his family fled west to Battambang.
Jacky does not know what happened to his parents. I didn't ask him whether that is because no one can tell him or because he doesn't want to know.
So when I visited the cremation site of Pol Pot, the leader of the radical Khmer Rouge, I was shocked when I saw a freshly cut mandarin placed at the site as an offering to his spirit.
The fruit had not even begun to dry out in the fierce Cambodian heat.
"They ask him for good luck,'' my moto driver, Dan, explained.
"Do they still like Pol Pot?" I asked, not quite believing that I had reason to ask such a question.
"Yes, they still like (him).''
Pol Pot's ashes are buried on the site where he lived leading up to the election of the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, and until 1979, when it was defeated by the Vietnamese.
It is just outside Anlong Ven, a small town about three hours north of Siem Reap and the ancient temple of Angkor Wat.
His house was destroyed by those who suffered during his torturous reign over the country, but his cremation site has since been beautified from the pile of rubble and old tyres that once marked it. It is now sheltered by a wooden hut and a statue of Buddha has been erected.
His second house, used to meet with his comrades (Pol Pot only called the opposition soldiers), is a few kilometres away and we returned to our motorbikes to take the remote path that leads there.
Along the way, we passed Cambodian soldiers waiting in the forest in anticipation of an invasion from Thailand, which is less than 1km away. The Thais have made a recent attempt to claim one of the country's ancient temples, Preah Vihear, about 200km from Anlong Ven, and the nation is now on full alert.
Landmine warning signs also dot the side of the path - a bush toilet stop could become deadly.
Dan told me when he first visited Pol Pot's cremation site in 2003 it was surrounded by landmines, which have now been cleared by an NGO project.
We arrived safely at Pol Pot's second house, a single cement room now covered in the names of tourists and the dates that they visited.
It is nowhere near as lavish as the house of Ta Mok, the regime's military leader. My friend Jill and I visited Ta Mok's house when we arrived in Anlong Ven two days earlier.
His residence included three two-storey wooden buildings with decorated floor tiles and beautiful murals depicting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and Preah Vihear. The wreck of an old truck used by the men to transport prisoners still lies in the garden and the tower communications system also remains.
The river that Ta Mok built for protection around his home still holds water, although all the trees have drowned. From the window of one of the buildings, I watched a local family bathe in the water and two farmers herd their cattle along its bank.
Khmer also come here to pray in front of a Buddha statue. I cannot comprehend how they can pray in such a haunting place - or how they find peace at the home of one of the men who is responsible for the deaths of so many of their own. Perhaps it is for that reason that they come here. Are they seeking peace from the past?
A steady flow of tourists visit the Pol Pot and Ta Mok (he died in jail in 2006) sites almost thirty years after the fall of the regime. Most are Cambodians or Thais, Dan said. Jill and I are the only Western foreigners in Anlong Ven at the moment, he claimed.
Dan and our other moto driver, Jacky, who has just moved to the town from Phnom Penh in an attempt to benefit from the growing number of tourists heading here, were more than happy to share their stories with us.
Both men lost family members during the Khmer Rouge regime. Dan was just three years old when the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and he and his family fled west to Battambang.
Jacky does not know what happened to his parents. I didn't ask him whether that is because no one can tell him or because he doesn't want to know.
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