Into the Darkness: the Kong Lo Cave

After those great days of fun in Don Det, I left the Four Thousand Islands region heading north to my next self-appointed destination: the famous Kong Lo Cave, halfway up through the country. My best bus option was to go to the small town of Thakaek, still 200 km  away from the cave but with supposedly good access points. Our new Spanish friend, Patrícia, was going the same way, so we said our goodbyes to Erica, Dan and Anais, who were going to Pakse, and got going.

Boy, that bus was quite a ride. Luckily it was not as crowded as some buses we took in Laos, but then again… well, for starters, there as a woman carrying a full grown rooster in the seat in front of us, and every now and then it would cooockadoodledoooo!

Our friend the rooster

In the meantime, our brain cells were fried with non-stop Thai trash music videos. There was also a thoroughly drunk Laotian guy that was intent on communicating with us – except that the only sentences he knew in English were “Thank you” and “Darling, I love you”. At a certain point in the journey, we stopped in a small village, and the bus was flooded with little smiling kids selling us barbecue.

Darling, I love you!

Barbecue?

We reached Thakaek late in the night, after 12 hours in the bus, and went straight to a guesthouse and collapsed on the beds. We woke up early next morning and took a bus to Ban Khoun Kham. In that bus we were lucky enough to meet Kelli, Andrea and Brandon, fantastic fellow travelers from Florida, who were also in their way to the cave. In Khoun Kham we found a last pick-up ride to the caves, hoping to be able to visit it and get the hell out of there in that same day.

Kelli, Bran and Andrea on the left, Patri on the right

We finally got the cave entrance, a great black mouth by a scenic lake. The Kong Lo cave, 9.4 km long, is one of the longest caves in the world, and is only accessible by boat.

So we donned our lifejackets and headlamps, and braved the darkness towards our boat.

The interior of the cave is almost all covered by the river. There are small sand beaches here and there. However, there is a high bank (the only part in the cave that has floodlights) in which beautiful sets of stalactites and stalagmites create exquisite columns and patterns, and that’s where we leave the boat to explore on foot. The air there is also very, very dusty, leaving you to choose between using flash and getting hazy pics (as the dust reflects the flash) or getting blurry ones because of the aperture time required by the dark environment. So, forgive me the bad quality of the photos…

With flash

We get down from the stalactite bank by the other side, where our boat is waiting for us. We have to cross a shallow and slippery part of the river, being very careful in our steps.

At some point here, I asked Patri and our two Laotian guides to turn off their lights, so we could experience full darkness. It is a creepy, exhilarating moment, and the Laotians don’t seem to enjoy it very much.

Our boat proceeded to a rather long ride through the rest of the cave. The place is simply INCREDIBLE. There is a cathedral-like hugeness to it, and sometimes you can’t even see the ceiling. Unfortunately, there is simply no way of taking pictures in that kind of darkness. And, even if it was possible, I doubt they would convey the feeling of being there, feeling like an insignificant ant before the forces of nature. It’s humbling to think that everything there was sculpted by powerful forces set in motion long before any life form remotely resembling you  walked the Earth, and that they will continue to work long after all memory of you will have vanished. So much for our self-centered universe.

We passed through big and small waterfalls along the cave, created by rainwater from the mountaintop that finds its way between the rocks.

And suddenly, we see the light – the back entrance of the cave.

Our guides take a short way along the river, to a place with a small cottage where it’s possible to buy refreshments before going back into the cave. The jungle-and-mountains setting around us is just stunning.

We got back into the boats, and into the cave. This time, I had the presence of mind to shoot a short video.

The way back was just as awesome, and we’ve also seen the giant bats hanging from the walls. And then, it was over.

On the way out, we even witnessed the annual butterfly convention – thousands of them, at least 8 different colors that I could spot, flying together for some reason.

And then – last photos of the great place, and everybody rushing back to catch the night bus to Vientiane, the Laotian capital!

It was a great pleasure to visit the Kong Lo cave, and so much more so because of the great people I was sharing this with! Thanks a lot, dear Kelli, Andrea, Dan and Patri!

Kayaking on the Mekong

On our third and last day in Don Det, the most famed island in the region known as the Four Thousand Islands in Laos, we decided to take one of the kayaking tours promoted there. At 180,000 kips (around US$ 22), it was expensive, but then again it included breakfast, lunch, kayaking, dolphin-watching and two waterfalls. During the last night we had met Patrícia, a Spanish girl whom our French girl Anaís had met in Cambodia, and after she joined us we bought out kayaking tickets. Erica and Dan preferred to stay put and relax all day long, and who could blame them? Part of me was jealous.

We woke up at 8 am (SO HARD!) and after a quick breakfast headed to the shore. Each of us received -two essential survival pieces of equipment: a life jacket and a Chinese-style pointy sun-hat. We received some very quick instructions on the tricks of the trade, and soon enough we were all sliding through the Mekong. The girls shared a two-person kayak. I asked to go solo. Like a boss.

Spanish Patrí, French Anais, Brazilian me :)

Kayaking looks fun, and it is, but it’s no easy business. It requires a lot of effort from your arms to paddle your way down the river. The Mekong has a really faint current in that part of its course – which is great for control, but also means you have to do all the propelling work yourself. Kayaking alone is even harder – whenever you have to rest, there’s no one else to keep your momentum, and the kayak comes to a full stop, require more effort still to get it moving again.

Soon after we started, I looked to the back of my kayak to take my water bottle, and found a f@#$% big spider as a loving passenger. As I frantically tried to shove it off the boat, I flipped the kayak over and fell on the water. Luckily, there was no applause.

Our first stop was a waterfall. We parked our kayaks at the shore and went to check it out.

Here was the biggest disappointment of the day.  I had brought my camera along because the guy at the ticket booth guaranteed there was going to be a dry bag to everyone. It turned out that the dry bag was not really dry at all. My camera was wet and there was water inside the lens. As of now, it’snot working properly still, I just hope it will be back to life after it completely dries up… Still, the waterfall was beautiful.

The (hopefully not) last pic of my beloved camera

After that we returned to the kayaks and tried to spot some dolphins. That was the most miserable part of the trip. We were all there, just past noon, starving and enduring the relentless sun with not a single breeze around, keeping silent and paddling careful not to scare the dolphins off. The stupid things showed up very far away and didn’t get close.

We parked again in another island, this time one that was actually in the Cambodian side of the border, where we had a hearty lunch of rice, bread and watermelons, and took an hour resting under a merciful shade.

When that was over we took up our paddles again and kayaked for another hour and a half, until we reached yet another island, the one of the big waterfall. We helped loading all the kayaks into a truck, and the hopped on ourselves and hit the road.

We reached the big waterfall shortly, and it is indeed beautiful and impressive. No wonder the French soon concluded it was impossible to use the Mekong as trade route with China back in the day. A pity it’s not possible to swim there, as the currents are too strong and the terrain too dangerous.

Finally, the truck took us to the shore and we got into the kayaks for the fourth and last time for our way back to Don Det. Although we were very tired by then, it might have been the most pleasurable paddling time of them all. The sun was setting and it wasn’t too hot, there was a gentle breeze blowing, and the scenery was just gorgeous.

I had even a final gift from the universe: upon arriving to the Don Det island, I saw a bunch of guys jumping into the river from a high platform, looked like real fun. I went to investigate and found out it was a kind of trampoline built on the edge of a balcony from a nearby restaurant. I guess it was around 10 meters high. It was just perfect.

Well, some of us kind of chickened out…

Patri the Brave

All in all, it was a great day. Caressed by the beautiful sunset below, tired but happy, we went back to our bungalows to meet Dan and Erica for dinner, and prepare for the journey  next morning.

Experience: the Killing Fields, and the Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison

Choeung Ek Killing Fields

This was arguably the hardest day of my trip, emotionally. Indeed, being lost among the marvels of Cambodia’s ancient past in the temples of Angkor Wat, or dealing with ever-smiling Cambodians can never prepare your heart to relate to the horror of the country’s recent events. So, before starting my tale, let me (very briefly) introduce you to this particular little bit of history.

During the course of the Vietnam War, fought between South and North Vietnam and with extensive involvement of foreign allies on both sides, conflict and fighting (and bombing) spread to the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia, leading to the creation, in the latter, of the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer) – a communist radical insurgency group. Khmers are the majority ethnic group in Cambodia. Led by the revolutionary leader Pol Pot, this group fought a gradual guerrilla war against the government forces, being backed up by communist forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia after seizing the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975.

Pol Pot wished to create a pure agrarian communist state in the country. Being suspicious of city-dwellers (regarded as parasites and lackeys of capitalism), he ordered the immediate evacuation of cities. In three days, the entire population of Phnom Penh (between 2 and 3 million) was ordered to move out and assigned to 12-hour-a-day forced labor in farm fields. As Pol Pot’s regime developed, violence against perceived “traitors of the revolution” escalated, leading to the creation of prisons, torture chambers and, ultimately, killing fields all over the country. An estimated 3 million people (out of a former population of 8 million) died under the rule of the Khmer Rouge.

For more information, I recommend the good Wikipedia articles on Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, and Democratic Kampuchea. I also highly recommend watching the 1984 movie The Killing Fields. So, upon arriving in Phnom Penh, I decided to visit one of the killing fields and the most famous political prison, to have a deeper understanding of that sad bit of human history.

The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, created upon one of the killing fields in the outskirts of Phnom Penh, first impressed me by how lovely the place is. It was a sunny day, the place is clean, verdant and pleasant, and not at all what one would expect of such a location. On the front, there is a high memorial stupa. This quickly brings you back to reality – the stupa houses an incredibly high pile of more than 5,000 human skulls, part of the over 9,000 bodies found in that field alone. More on that later.

The memorial stupa

Choeung Ek wasn’t a concentration camp, as there was no forced labor here. One entered the place either to kill, or to die. The aim was to eliminate prisoners as quickly and efficiently as possible. The method was mainly bludgeoning, since the Khmer Rouge wouldn’t spend precious bullets for such a job. Executions were conducted only at night, to avoid raising suspicion of people and workers nearby. Prisoners would be walked to previously dug collective pits, killed on the spot, and thrown in the pit, much in the way illustrated below.

There are signs marking the places where the buildings (later destroyed by the Vietnamese) were. Two of them are particularly touching. During the height of its activity, more than 300 prisoners were executed every day here, more than the guards could handle. So a small prison, dubbed “the Dark and Gloomy Prison” was erected – just a windowless depot for storing human cargo to be executed during the next night. There was also a storage room for chemicals – those helped cover up the unbearable stench, and also served to kill any half-dead prisoners thrown in the pits while still alive.

Perhaps the best image of the Khmer Rouge’s utter disregard for life is provided by their own famous saying, aimed at the traitors: “To destroy you is no loss. To preserve you is no gain.”

There are many, many depressions in the soil around the site. These mark the former pits. The bodies were exhumed and moved to proper burial sites. However, during every rainy season the waters and erosion bring up fragments of bones, teeth, and cloth rags. Indeed, you can see many of them in the ground around your feet, one of the gloomiest visions I ever had. It’s almost as if the place itself will not let anyone forget the horror that happened here.

There is also a very good audio tour provided along with the entrance ticket. You can hear explanations about each part of the place, as well as stories from survivors of the Khmer Rouge’s prisons and camps. There are no survivors from Choeung Ek. It’s impossible not to be moved by the stories, or to to fight the tears as you try to imagine what it must have felt like to go through all of this. Suddenly, all your problems, suffering, and everything you ever thought hard or painful in your life seem small and insignificant – and they really are.

Bones collected from the ground

On this tree a huge loudspeaker was hanged every night, playing political songs, so as to disguise the place as a Khmer Rouge political meeting, and muffle the screams of the victims.

One of the most terrifying visions was the tree below. Here, the children and little babies of prisoners were killed. Standard procedure was to hold the child by the ankles, and then smash his/her head against the tree. The horror is simply unspeakable.

By the end of the circuit, you can visit the memorial stupa. Here, layers upon layers of skulls retrieved from the pits are kept. This is truly a terrifying vision. The skulls are just there, each of them belonging to a person who was once just like you and me – good and bad, loving and selfish, generous and greedy, all of them stripped from the greatest gift of them all. They are all just there, looking back at you, as if demanding answers for the horrible crimes committed against them.

So after all this, deeply upset and lost in thoughts, I decided to look for a restroom. Found one near the museum bordering the walls. After getting out, I heard a lot of laughter and happy, playful sounds. I looked over the wall:

Just beside the memorial there is a school for small children. There they were, doing that wonderful mess children do, completely oblivious to the terrible deeds that happened next door. Probably some of their relatives even were here. I found new hope upon seeing the school – there is the future of Cambodia, and I pray those children can build up a society that learns, and remembers.

Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison

Most of the prisoners executed at the Choeung Ek killing fields were first detained at the S-21 Prison. This place was a high school before the Khmer Rouge took power. After that, all schools in the country were simply closed, as Pol Pot believed education was useless to the revolution, and corrupted the purity of the “old people”, the pure, agrarian peasant lifestyle. The building was renamed Security Prison 21, and turned into a prison and execution center for political targets, right in the middle of Phnom Penh.

Right in the front of the main courtyard, that looks just any other school grounds in the world – classroom buildings surrounding big playing fields – are the tombs of the 14 last victims of the center, the ones whose corpses were found there when the place was liberated by the Vietnamese. Between 17,000 and 20,000 people were imprisoned in Tuol Sleng, and out of those there are only 7 survivors, all of whom had some skill useful to their captors, such as painting or photography. Right there is also a big sign stating the code of conduct of the center.

One of the buildings was used as a detention unit, with wooden and brick cells adapted within the former classrooms.

In the detention building there is barbed wire in every open-air corridor. This was to prevent prisoners from committing suicide by jumping down.

The other building was used as an interrogation facility. Prisoners would be extensively tortured to reveal names and locations of friends and family, who would in their turn be arrested, tortured and sent to the killing fields.

Looks like a regular school...

One of the interrogation rooms, and a picture of how it was found

These poles were used by students for exercise, but the KR adapted them for torturing people by hanging them upside down into water containers

The torture tools

The Khmer Rouge, in an upsetting similarity with the Nazis, were extremely meticulous in recording all their activities. Prisoners were measured, photographed, given identification numbers and photographed again after torture and death. Lists would be checked and rechecked everyday to ensure that nobody escaped. Confessions, completely made-up and gotten under extreme torture, were written down and signed by the prisoners, who were then signing their own death sentence.

One of the prisoners actually smiled for the photo. I'm still wondering about what caused that smile.

Can you see the traitorous look of these children? Such a threat to the revolution.

Some of the prisoner profiles and confessions

There are plenty of photos of the bodies after torture in the Khmer Rouge’s archives, but I really couldn’t bring myself to photograph them.

I left S-21 with a bleak feeling about humanity. Perhaps the best question was one I’ve found on the walls of one of the cells in the detention building. Some previous tourist, doubtlessly assaulted by the same feelings I was experiencing then, wrote:

“Will we ever learn?”