Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [84]
Over the next hour, we were led from one spot to the next; this was where a hundred victims were discovered; in another spot two hundred victims were found, over here, four hundred. In another spot, we learned that the skeletons unearthed had been buried without their heads, so it was impossible to know how many had been unearthed. In this particular field, we learned that thousands had died; precise figures are impossible to know with any certainty.
Micah and I simply wandered in silence, feeling sad and sickened. Eventually, we were led to the memorial temple and went inside.
The temple, white in color, was ten feet to a side, and roughly forty feet high, making it look like a rectangular block stood on end. We didn’t know what to expect, but what we found left us paralyzed. Running up the back wall to the top of the temple were glass-enclosed shelves, stacked with thousands and thousands of skulls.
On our way back to the bus, Micah summed up my own feelings in three simple words.
“This was hell.”
In the strangest juxtaposition of the entire tour, one that left me feeling off balance for the rest of the day, we went from the Killing Fields straight to the Russian Market for a few hours of frivolous shopping.
Cambodia, like many Asian countries, has perfected the art of piracy, and the Russian Market was a building crowded with hundreds of vendors, selling everything from pirated DVDs to pirated clothing. DVDs cost three dollars, jeans supposedly from the Gap went for half that.
The market was crowded; it seemed that every tourist visiting the country had heard about the place and had decided to visit at the same time. Despite the fact that most of our tour group had ample financial means and could afford the real items back home, most everyone left the market with a bagful of bargains.
On our last night in Phnom Penh, there was no cocktail party, so we were encouraged to make reservations at one of the hotel restaurants, since our hotel boasted some of the best food in Cambodia. Micah and I, naturally, forgot to make them, and ended up eating at one of the casual dining spots in the hotel. It was nearly empty, and we finished our meal in half an hour.
Although initially disappointed, we ended up being pleased by our meal. As fate would have it, everything went wrong in the kitchens that night. Everyone who’d made a reservation wound up having to wait hours for their meal. Ovens broke, cooks hadn’t shown up, meals came out wrong—Murphy’s law was in full force. Appetizers took an hour and a half to reach the table; the main course followed two hours later. While in some circumstances that wouldn’t have bothered people, we’d been on the road for thirteen days. People were tired and we had to rise early for our flight to Jaipur the following morning. On a night when everyone was looking forward to getting eight hours of sleep—as Micah and I did—most got less than five.
In our room, Micah and I were watching the Croc Hunter again. Along with CNN, The Crocodile Hunter was the only English-language show we’d been able to find. Every time we’d turned on the television—no matter what country we were in—Croc Hunter was always on. By Cambodia, it had become something of a long-running joke—by our reckoning, it was the most widely watched show in the world.
“Oh, isn’t this snake a beauuuuuty,” Steve Irwin, the ever enthusiastic Australian host, was saying. “Look at the colors. Oh, she’s magnificent, isn’t she? This little beauty is dangerous—one bite can kill a dozen men!”
“The guy is nuts,” Micah commented.
“He’s always nuts,” I said. “My kids love to watch him.”
Micah was quiet for so long, I thought he’d begun to doze. When I glanced over at him, however, I saw he was staring at the ceiling.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
It was a long moment before he answered. “What we saw today. Earlier this morning. The museum, the Killing Fields.”
“It was awful, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. When he spoke again,