Bus takes tourists to sites of Cambodia’s most gruesome history

Tourists in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh can see death easily. The Killing Fields & Prison S21 Bus Tour will pick them up their hotels.

Cambodia was the site of a horrible genocide. Pol Pot’s government killed at least 1.5 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.

Many tourists want to see the “killing fields” which inspired the movie of that name. The S21 prison, where tens of thousands were tortured, is also a popular destination. These people want to learn what happened in this hidden corner of the world.

The operators of the Killing Fields & Prison S21 Bus Tour know their clientele.

The buses play English-language documentaries telling the history of the communist regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

“Both the Genocide Museum as well as the Killing Fields were two stops we really wanted to make while in our time in Phnom Penh here and having the bus made it really convenient and accessible to come;” said Valeria Maslova, a tourist from Los Angeles.

“Having the English commentary on the bus right beforehand really got you into the mindset to be able to come here and really take everything in and learn about what happened and as well hopefully learn from the mistakes and not repeat them in the future,” she said.

Before the bus company formed, tourists had to find their own transportation. They had to figure out for themselves what they were seeing.

For the most part the Cambodian genocide was ignored while it was happening. As with the genocide in Rwanda in 1990, the world looked away. Now some people want to learn about what they ignored.

“I was in my twenties when this was happening here in this country and I didn’t take it seriously,” said Pastor Jeff Winter from Orlando, Florida. “Today on this tour I am really blown away and very hurt in my spirit to think that this happened not that many years ago.

”I’ve been to Dachau, I’ve been to Auschwitz, I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Israel, in Jerusalem, and this in my opinion is much more striking and much more despairing in my spirit than even those places that I went to,” he said.

The Killing Fields & Prison S21 Bus Tour is not typical tourist fare. However it is very popular. The tour owners are adding more buses.

It seems people want to learn what they did not know, so they can again hope, “Never again.”