The Killing Caves

While Carlos and I were in Battambang we decided to do a tour with a local named Kim. The most interesting part of the tour was when Kim took us to The Killing Caves. I had actually never heard about it before. The Khmer Rouge evacuated everyone from the city and took them up to the top part of the cave, killed them and threw them over the edge into the cave. The three pictures I am posting are 1)a painting demonstrating what happened there, 2)The case where they keep the bones and skulls they have found in the cave, and 3)four skulls that had just been found the week before we were there.

Before we went into the cave Kim explained to us what it was like during the time of the Khmer Rouge. He told us that everyone from the city was thought to be well educated and therefore were evacuated and brought to the Killing Caves and killed. The people who lived in the country side were put to work in the farms. As he is telling us this we stand in the shade, yet sweat runs down his face. He looks at his arm to find a red ant crawling its way up. Quickly, he picks it up between his fingers and pops it into his mouth. "Was that an ANT?" I asked. "Yup, it's good if you grill it up with beef. Tastes like chicken."

Kim continued on to tell us what his own family went through. Before Kim was born his father was married and had four children. He lost his wife and three of his children to starvation. Kim said that everyday his father would come home and his staving children would say "our father will give us food," but he had no food to give. The children said that until the day they died. Kim only found out about this last year through his mother. His father never spoke of it.

Kim told us there were many times when he was young where he had to hide in bunkers and was one of the lucky ones because he knew whole families who died there. Often times he had to steal food. He didn't want to steal, but he had to in order to survive. Another ant crawls by. I now understand how he can eat this insect with such ease, because at one time he had to rely on such things to survive.

It was so interesting to hear about this from someone who was lucky enough to survive this time, as Khmer Rouge killed about a quarter of the population in Cambodia. Being there felt a bit more personal after listening to Kim's story. As we headed into the cave, the sound of falling leaves crashing through the trees echoed the bodies that only decades earlier had plunged to their final resting place. I said a silent Thank You for being so lucky.