Silk Riders: On the Trail of Marco Polo

Silk Riders: Jo and Gareth Morgan's Incredible Journey on the Trail of Marco Polo was an interesting read. Jo and Gareth were avid motorbikers, and as they were finishing a ride high in the Indian Himalaya they started thinking of their future tours. A fellow rider tossed out the silk road and Jo and Gareth really liked the idea. The trip took two years to organize. In that time they had to figure out political details, travel logistics, cultural awareness issues, get and curry sponsorship, and of course figure out who among their friends could join them on their trip. BMW only provided at large discount 7 bikes and so the trip was limited to 7. 

The 7 were kiwis, but their trip would begin at the BMW factory in Munich where the new bikes recently broken in in the Australian outback and imported into Germany to begin the trip would get a total tuning in readiness for the multi-thousand-kilometer journey.

Then in 2005 the trip began. They were waved off in Munich by a single person, an English motorcyclist who journeyed from Yorkshire to Bavaria to see them off, and off they went through the lower reaches of Germany, into Austria, to the foothills of the Alps, and onward to Venice, the family home of Marco Polo. Despite the Polo family being one of the most prominent families of Venice and despite the since fame of the explorer, the 7 were surprised at the few memorials commemorating one of the city's most famous past residents. There is a library where Marco's last will and testament is held and the San Lorenzo church, in the yard of which he was buried in 1324. Near the site of his homestead is an area of little courts called 'Il Milione', which was Marco's nickname, 'the teller of a million tales'. 

Then off to the Balkans they sped. Few people are aware that Marco Polo was not a Venetian by birth but rather a Croatian. Marco was born on Korcula, an island of what is now Croatia. Of course the 7 had to go to the island, ferrying one of the bikes over for a picture with the iconic bike in front of what is said to be the house of Marco Polo's birth. 

To Serbia, Bulgaria, then Gallipolli, Turkey, which was very significant to the Kiwis as they recalled the Kiwis who died trying to claim the cliffs of Gallipolli. Onward to Istanbul where Jo started to having trouble as women were not to be seen in public, certainly not on a motorbike, and even though as she progressed further into Iran, the chador she wore just wasn't quite enough because it outlined her provocative bottom as she sped along. 

A disappointment to me in the book was the little attention given to following the trail of Marco Polo, as far as information on what they discovered in relation to Marco. Instead, the intent of the book was just to skim over the countries the 7 sped through and give mostly motorcycle commentation on the road conditions or visa issues. There were tidbits on culture but obviously the book was about a mad dash across Asia following a trail and not really picking up that many culturally rich experiences. 

That said, the highlight of the Iranian segment of the trip was the visit to the Valley of the Assassins, of which Marco wrote. The fortress of Alamut still remains, and as legend goes, an 11th century Hashish-iyun sect, basically an Islamic mercenary group led by a fanatical imam, had an unusual method for training young men to fight unconditionally. He would dose them with hashish and then turn them loose in a five-star pleasure garden stocked with milk and honey and virgins--all accouterments of paradise. After a couple of weeks, he removed them and cut off their narcotic supply. Finding themselves in a military camp they were told that they had been to paradise and if they hoped to live again in the style they had experienced in paradise, they would need to distinguish themselves in battle, and the imam of course provided that. These feared, driven warriors were known as Hashish-iyun, and the word 'assassin' derives from this group.

The Silk Riders only did the overland route from Venice to Xanadu (now Yuanshangdu) and down to Beijing. They didn't even attempt to follow Marco's route of 20+ years. 

To Tehran (the city that couldn't possibly have worse traffic, and motorcycles were forbidden in them for fear of drive-by motorcycle gunners) so their motorcycles were transported via truck. Lots of problems but eventually they were allowed to proceed onward to Turkmenistan, perched on the edge of the Karakum Desert across which they would have to travel. 

Then to Uzbekistan, the country that is the world's largest silk producer, and the country that was the half-way point of the 7 bikers' trip. Onward to Kyrgyzstan and most notably to Kara-Kul in the northwest where there are soaring mountains, alpine meadows and cooler temperatures. Close is the beautiful Lade Issyk-Kul, the second highest navigable alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in Peru. Jo had swum in Lake Titicaca two years previous on another tour, and she attempted to take a dip in Lake Issyk-Kul in memory of her previous swim.

Of course they had chances to try the many exotic foods on the regions they passed through. In Kyrgyzstan is was the kumys, the fermented mare's milk popular among the nomads and which Marco had reported favorably that the drink tasted like white wine. The 7 heartily disagreed!

To China. One of the most amazing highlight in China was in Dunhuang, known for the famous Mogao Grottoes, or the Caves of 1000 Buddhas, which is a structure carved into a rocky cliff-face at the edge of the Lop Nor Desert. The Buddhas trace back to the first which was carved in AD366 when a Buddhist monk carved one Buddha figure into a rock. Over the ensuing 1500 years, more Buddhas were added, but not only Buddhas as the name suggests, but also the life of the local people. In the 20th century a chamber was discovered containing thousands of manuscripts which had been sealed since the 11th century. Unfortunately, explorers from England, Germany, Russia and more countries pillaged the place, dispersing artifacts around the globe but leaving the caves as empty shells, but ones which continue to whisper the reminders of great secrets from Chinese antiquity.

Continuing onward out of the desert great mounds of packed earth started appearing ... remnants of the ancient Great Wall which ended in the desert and which in their entirety were built over a period of 1500 years. This amazing wall eventually was over 10,000 kilometers in distance, but despite the great expanse, the beacon towers could relay a message of attack, fire, emergency from the furthest-most tower in the desert back to Peking in less than 30 minutes! 

Of course they cycled to Xian, the capital of China until Kubla Khan (Marco's Great Khan), the man who shifted the reins of command to Peking in the 14th century. They viewed the 2000-year-old, life-sized warriors guarding the royal tomb that was discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. The 7 reckoned 300,000 workers were needed in this construction that took over 35 years to build.

From Xian to Mongolia, the end of the road. They headed to Shangdu, known to Marco as Xanadu and which, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan had his stately pleasure-dome. Once they got there, they were in trouble with the authorities as to their purpose in that town. And then they came to realize that Shangdu was not the old Xanadu but Yuanshangdu, 200 kilometers away, was. And off they sped to Yuanshangdu, where in 1275 Kublai Khan had received Niccolo and Maffeo Polo and Niccolo's boy, Marco. This was the town that marked the eastern limit of Kublai Khan's empire, which stretched right back the way they had come, to Hungary. This was the end of the Silk Riders enterprise. Since April, they had covered almost 20,000 kilometers, crossed two major deserts, dodged through a war zone, visited the three inland oceans of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and traversed the entire distance from west to east of the Great Wall.

They saddled up and set off for Beijing, the city known as Khan-Balik, "the Lord's City", in Kublai Khan's day. Their journey culminated with a ceremonial banquet at the New Zealand embassy and well attended by members of the BMW owners' club. would be held in their honor for the completion of their journey.

For a 52:30 minute YouTube clip on their journey, watch "Silk Riders - Motorcycling tour in the footsteps of Marco Polo",  and their blog on their journey.

A Cheryl Strayed kind of "Wild"

Cheryl Strayed discovered herself on the Pacific Crest Trail, the PCT. Her name Strayed is not a family name, but a name she identified with after she lost her mother to cancer, and her husband through her inability to stay connected to anyone after the traumatic death of her mother. On her divorce papers, she was given the glorious opportunity to state her last name, not her family name -- she didn't identify with family anymore. She loved the idea of creating her own identity, but it was an identity she was struggling to find. How many people get to just choose their name, their identity? So she thought and thought and the word that resonated with her was "strayed".

With its layered definition the word spoke directly to her heart. It struck a poetic chord; it resonated. "To wander from the proper path, to deviate from the direct course, to be lost, to become wild, to be without a mother or father, to be without a home, to move about aimlessly in search of something, to diverge or digress." She became Cheryl Strayed. And with the signing of the divorce papers and the claiming of a new name she identified with, she began her trek of the Pacific Crest Trail, a trail that she had just learned of months before. In a sense she strayed onto the trail because of her intense sorrow.

The history of the PCT goes back to a retired teacher from Bellingham, Washington named Catherine Montgomery. In a conversation with mountaineer and writer Joseph T. Hazard, she suggested that there should be a border-to-border "high trail winding down the heights of our western mountains." It was 1926. Though a small group of hikers immediately embraced Montgomery's idea, it wasn't until Clinton Churchill Clarke took up the cause six years later that a clear vision of the PCT began to coalesce. Clarke was an oilman who lived in leisure in Pasadena, but he was also an avid outdoors-man, who was appalled by a culture that spent "too much time sitting on soft seats in motors, too much sitting in soft seats in movies." Clarke lobbied the federal government to set aside a wilderness corridor for the trail. His vision went far beyond the PCT, which he hoped would be a mere segment of a much longer "Trail of the Americas" that would run from Alaska to Chile. He believed that time in the wilderness provided "a lasting curative and civilizing value," and he spent 25 years advocating for the PCT, though when he died in 1957 the trail was still only a dream.

Perhaps Clarke's most important contributions to the trail was making the acquaintance of Warren Rogers, who was 24 when the two met in 1932. Rogers was working for the YMCA in Alhambra, California, when Clarke convinced him to help map the route by assigning teams of YMCA volunteers to chart and in some cases construct what would become the PCT. Thought initially reluctant, Rogers soon became passionate about the trail's creation and he spend the rest of his life championing the PCT and working to overcome all the legal, financial, and logistical obstacles that stood in its way. Rogers lived to see Congress designate the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail in 1968, but he died in 1992, a year before the trail was finished.

Cheryl Strayed didn't hike the whole PCT from Mexican border to Canadian border, and which actually extends beyond those borders. She started in southern California with a volkswagon of a backpack, much too heavy to lug and she was too inexperienced to know it, or even know how to part with some of it. She met people who encouraged her, a man who helped her repack her volkswagon which she was calling "monster" by this time, because it was so much larger and heavier than her contemporary hikers. At some point she had to get off the trail and avoid the snowy summits as the year she hiked there had been a particularly heavy snowfall. But she reconnected beyond the particularly snowy heights and slowly, ever so slowly, hiked northward, culminating her hike at Bridge of the Gods, near Portland, Oregon.

She healed considerably in her three months of climbing, frequently alone, on her 1,100- mile personal journey. Two months into the trek, she even observed that she hadn't cried once since getting on the trail, something that had been a daily inevitability since her mother had been so abruptly taken from her more than four years before.

The book was written in hindsight, 15 years after she returned to pick up the pieces of her life. In the many intervening years, she had gotten remarried, had a son and a daughter, and she had taken them to the culminating point of the trail and eaten ice cream with them like she had done when she had finished her personal PCT hiking journey. Hers was a cathartic journey, a shattering journey of emotions, and at the end of the trail she realized that she no longer needed to reach for ungraspable things with her bare hands. Just seeing fish below the surface of the water was enough to know that they were there. She had discovered truths of life on the trail, that life was mysterious ... and irrevocable ... and sacred. She knew more than before she began the hike, accepted more, and felt a sense of belonging that had escaped her when she had begun. The understanding was wild, her connection to everything was wild, and knowing this, she could let what she didn't understand be.

Stunning Rice Paddies in Japan

The fields in some locations in Japan at first look ordinary enough ... until the rice begins to grow!

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly PLANTED!

 Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colored rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. 

As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants. The colors are created by using different varieties of rice plants, whose leaves grow in certain colors. This photo was taken in Inakadate, Japan.

Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies. This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inakadate, Japan.

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives are featured on the television series "Tenchijin" appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture of Japan.

This year (2010 or before - I received these phenomenal pictures via email in July 2010), various artwork or smaller kinds of "crop art" has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan, including this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. 

The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
 The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields.

From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen. Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees. The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces.


In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
 A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot the planting of four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life!

The new revitalization project designs in Japan are truly works of art!!!

Noah's Ark in Hong Kong

An incredible tourist attraction is in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I didn’t take these pictures but received them along with the following information via email. Sad, but one day I will make a point of visiting the incredible modern-day version of Noah’s Ark.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park, complete with fiberglass animals exiting two-by-two, sits in front of the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong. The Ark in Hong Kong measures 450ft long and 75ft wide and is built according to Biblical specifications.

The Ark also boasts less authentic Biblical touches such as double-glazed windows and a fine dining restaurant.

The billionaire brothers who built the Ark in Hong Kong claim it is the only full-scale version in the world, and the imaginative trio even attempted to give the giant boat an air of authenticity by placing 67 pairs of animals at the entrance, just like the pairs of creatures saved from the Great Flood by Noah in the Bible tale. The creationist-inspired vessel forms part of a theme park near Hong Kong, which was inspired by a young girl's scrawled drawing of the mammoth boat. Architects appear to have used some artistic license in parts of the Ark—for instance, including double-glazed windows, a fine dining restaurant and luxurious bedrooms.
 Also inside, real-life exotic animals live—including a nautilus, a toucan and reams of fish—giving the Ark credibility and some life-like authenticity.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park is now run by Christian organizations, who use it to promote peace and unity. Matthew Pine, manager of Noah's Ark Theme Park, said: “They had a vision to do something remarkable, something outstanding. They came up with many ideas. Some of them were really outrageous. But then they came across this girl's drawing, and knew it would be something do-able that captured imaginations. So they hired architects and engineers to create the replica Noah's Ark.” 

The Ark also includes a sophisticated-looking restaurant as one of its on-board attractions. Guests on board Noah's Ark can also stay on the Biblical vessel in one of its luxurious hotel-style rooms.

The Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark theme park was completed in 2009, 17 years after plans were made for the enormous structure, and it is popular among tourists. “The reason that particular moment of the Flood story was chosen from the Bible's story is," says Matthew Pine, "because this is the message
 we want to bring to Hong Kong, to China, to the world. 'In our lives we always face floods, we will face trials, we will face difficulties.
 Hopefully Noah's Ark will inspire people to pass
 through those troubles as Noah did in his day.'” 

Zip-lining "The Gorge", North Carolina

Zip-lining "The Gorge" in Salina, North Carolina was quite the rush (although I have to say I was expecting a little more of an adrenaline charge, probably because during the whole experience we were surrounded by deep lush forest and felt cocooned and safe by the "soft" foliage. I think with all that luxurious greenness around, we didn't really get a chance to actually conceptualize just how high up among the treetops we were). Not scary at all, but the guides did say that every day there is probably at least one person who just can't do it, either at the beginning or along the way, and has to be carefully assisted down and escorted safely back to base. Not scary! It was enervating! 11 zip lines rapidly descending 1,100 feet in elevation over an expanse of 125 acres of old growth and protected forest. The 11 zip lines were rigged on fat cables that had been bore-holed through massive trees. A lot of oaks, maples, tulip trees, cucumber magnolias amongst others were in the forest. One guide to liven up the group asked people if they'd ever seen a cactus oak. Thought I was going to bust out laughing ... but have to say, he did have me guessing for a second! Our guides were quite the naturalists, so we were constantly entertained with outdoor lore while we waiting our turns to zip.

The night before my sister-in-law and I zipped, a violent thunder and lightning storm had crashed through the forest and toppled some massive trees. One of our guides had a tour in progress when the lightning started (zip-line tours last 3 1/2 - 4 hours, depending). Officially when that happens, the zip-lines are closed and everyone repels down and walks out of the forest. Our guide was walking his guests out when a tree came crashing down about 20 feet away from him. Everyone had taken off their helmets. Well, they put them right back on and scurried out of there quick! But to our advantage the next day, there was a huge gap in the foliage and we could see down into the valley - 14,000 acres of Green River Gamelands wilderness - as we zipped along to the next platform. Three of the eleven zip-lines have particularly awesome valley and undulating mountain views from the line, fantastic for getting a perspective of the immensity of the mountains, but the majority just offer flashing glimpses through the heavy leaf canopy. "The Gorge" isn't kidding when they advertise themselves as being a Zipline Canopy Adventure!

Amongst the 11 zip lines were three repels. I think the highest repel was 84 feet. This was my first time repelling too, if a person doesn't count top-lining a sheer cliff face and being lowered down. I had no control on how quickly I descended ... but then I didn't this time either since we were using a weighted pulley system which controlled the speed of descent.

Also a sky-bridge had recently been completed. It was a fun walk across, didn't sway that much, but was great for making a memorable photo of the whole zip lining-under-a-canopy experience.

In our group of eight, which is pretty much the maximum to expedite groups maintaining the zip lining schedule, three of our group were small 70-pound kids, the lowest weight a person can have in order to zip. Actually, because three of our members were of minimum weight, our group probably took a whole hour longer to go through the lines because light-weights zip at much lower velocity and stop well short of the next platform so have to work their little arms a lot to pull themselves along. The next group was constantly waiting for us to clear a platform so they could zip in. I sure hope their guides were as knowledgeable about the forest and nature as ours were, because we were certainly entertained the whole time we were waiting on our platforms.

A video clip of one of the spectacular lines was filmed. The clip absolutely does not do justice to the glory of the view, but the singing of the line on the clip sure is memorable! Found a better clip on YouTube of zipping in Saluda. Just one comment, the video only shows one (very limited) perspective of zipping through the canopy and always carefully holding on with both hands on impact. The potential is so much more ... just make sure when hitting the slowing device, to face forward or a whiplash or cable smack could result. Letting go before hitting is ... PERFECTLY SAFE!

Dogsledding at Wiggi's Mountainside Huskies, MI

Jack London popularized the idea of a dog and/or wolf in both The Call of the Wild and White Fang as powerful friend and means of transport in fiercely cold weather. The Dane, Knud Rasmussen, arctic explorer and Inuit anthropologist, was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dogsled. Every year the Iditarod is run, a dogsled challenge of officially 1,049 miles (1688 km). Friends went dogsledding last year and have since talked excitedly about it. I had to give it a try!

There are many sites in Michigan where a person can go dogsledding ... costs fluctuate a bit but weight restrictions pretty much max out at 300 pounds. My friends who went last year sat on a frame of webbing and the two of them were draw-stringed in a sack to keep flying snow off. That didn't sound like much of an authentic dogsled experience to me - sitting in a sack on a webbing with the potential of hitting a stump and getting a permanent implant. So did a little sleuthing online. Most of the sites offer rides for 30 minutes, 1 hour, and custom rides. Almost always, however, there is a weight cut-off of 300 pounds, of course this limit is to protect the dogs from over-exertion. The problem with the weight cut-off would force my brother and I to go in separate sleds at double the expense. Looking further, we found one place that was more rustic than others (perfect - not so commercial!), was three-generation family operated (a family passion and tradition), and way-lah, had a weight limit of 350 pounds. Yeah, a shared experience is so much more fun than going separate ways. We booked!

Guest riders are encouraged to pet and greet the dogs. Wiggi's had 14 dogs and 16 maturing pups. This year three litters had been born and each of the litters had been exceptionally large; I think they originally had 20 or 21 pups before selling some. The first dog we met was three-legged and she had the heart of a runner. A male dog had bit off her leg when she was a rowdy pup, but she had the pluck of a champion and could keep up with the other dogs, but the owners just didn't have the heart to hook her to a sled no matter how much she begged and positioned herself to be hooked up and run. She had the run of both the house and the woods as a much-loved member of the family. The other huskies were friendly, and wow did they get excited when the home-constructed light-framed sleds were dragged out. The dogs seemed to be vying for attention and getting chosen to run, otherwise I can imagine being chained in the long dog-line-up waiting for their turn made the day drag. The young man who took us out was telling us that animal rightists sometimes came by and threatened reporting them for making their dogs "work". Those animal rightists don't seem to understand that some dogs, like huskies, are "work" dogs and die inside without stimulation.

The dogs in line-up ... when the dogsled is positioned for going somewhere, then the dogs really come alive!

Hooking the dogs up. The back left dog is actually a pup in training. In his excitement to run he kept jumping the traces and getting himself tangled. Once out on the trail though he got right in with the concept of RUNNING :)

For the "Kodak moment" I started out sitting, but once a few shots were taken I got on one runner, my bro on another with the musher behind on both runners and controlling the kick-brake and off we went. From our runners we kicked going uphill to help the dogs and maintain speed and, going down, the musher applied the brake as necessary to keep from plowing over the dogs. 

The weather was perfect out! This winter 2013-2014 has been awesomely beautiful ... if one likes snow. Up until today when we went out dogsledding, Michigan has already gotten 88 inches of snow. Of course that all depends on where in Michigan a person is looking at accumulation. Anyway, the day before we went, another several inches fell and we were worried about driving on the back roads north of Cadillac because those roads can't be kept clear fast enough. Had to leave my bro's car, which is rear-wheel drive, behind and use mom's front-wheel drive vehicle. Wouldn't have made it otherwise!

Couldn't have asked for a more picturesque setting!

The snow was perfect for dogsledding though. And with the recent blanket of whiteness, also perfect for pictures. On the dogsledding route weaving through a large wooded expanse, we passed a horse pasture. The poor horses weren't enjoying the snow so much, and just a few days before one of the horses had lain down in the snow evidently to roll but then couldn't get up. Took a couple of hours to dig the poor horse out. Nope, the horses weren't enjoying their little confining trod-down area much.

Well, we did very much enjoy the snowy day. I wouldn't call what we did as an adrenaline-spiking adventure but it sure was a novelty and a wonderful winter-weather experience. Have to say, though, after the 30 minutes of virtually no hand movement on the back of the sled, my front paws were cold. The dogs, on the other hand, were blazing hot ... and were rewarded with venison to say "thank you" for their great effort. 

From my research on what's available for dogsledding in Michigan's lower peninsula, this seems to be the most authentic and uncommercialized. Wiggi's Mountain-side Huskies: wwhuskies@netscape.net and 231-362-2651. They're on FB too.

Dogsledding at Wiggi's Mountainside Huskies, a family-owned business. Have to say, this 30 minute new experience - and in such a fantastically clean pastoral setting - was the highlight of my winter vacation!

Tuol Seng - Genocide Museum

Tuol Seng, the former Khmer Rouge S-21 prison, is a genocide museum reminding the world of the disaster that befell Cambodia starting in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came in droves into the cities with the intent of taking absolute control of the country. The Khmer Rouge were for the most part young kids who had been so brainwashed by a twisted ideology, and they were given control, these young, little tutored half-adults governed by a remorseless regime to eradicate those educated, their elders who they should have respected, the people who were the foundation and grit of the country ... and so a senseless, brutal genocide programs swept the country. It is suggested that as many as 1/3 of the Cambodians were senselessly eradicated by out-of-control Khmer Rouge. Tuol Seng, otherwise known as S-21 prison, was the Khmer Rouge headquarters and the location of the most brutal tortures that have been recorded in our modern day.

Tuol Sleng as a Prison

In English, the word "Tuol Sleng" is recognized as the location where the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime, more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime, set up a prison to detain individuals accused of opposing Angkar. However, in the Khmer language, the word "Tuol Sleng" connotes a terrible meaning in itself. It is perhaps only a strange coincidence that the KR regime used this specific location as a prison.

According to the Khmer dictionary published by the Khmer Buddhist Institute in 1967, the word "Tuol" is a noun. It means the ground that is higher in level than that around it. The world "Sleng" can be a noun and also an adjective. When the world "Sleng" functions as an adjective, it means, "supplying guilt" (del aoy tos) or "bearing poison" (del noam aoy mean toas) or "enemy of disease" (del chea sat-trov ning rok). As a noun, "Sleng" means the two kinds of indigenous Khmer poisonous trees. The first kind is "Sleng Thom" or Big Sleng that has a big trunk, leaves, and fruit. The second type is "Sleng Vour" or Sleng Vine which is shaped almost like a vine with small fruit. They are both poisonous. Therefore, from the above translation we can see that Toul Sleng literally means a poisonous hill or a place on a mound to keep those who bear or supply guilt (toward Angkar).

According to documents discovered by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, S-21 was established at Tuol Sleng in May 1976.

S-21 or Tuol Sleng was the most secret organ of the KR regime. S-21 stands for "Security Office 21." S-21 was Angkar's premier security institution, specifically designed for the interrogation and extermination of anti-Angkar elements.

In 1962, S-21 was a high school called "Ponhea Yet" High School, named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk. During the Lon Nol regime, a republican regime backed by the US government in the 1970s, the name was changed to Tuol Svay Prey High School. Behind the school fence, there were two wooden buildings with thatched roofs. These buildings were constructed before 1970 as a primary school. Today all of these buildings are called "Tuol Sleng" and form part of the museum of genocidal crimes.

S-21, located in Tuol Svay Prey sub-district, south of Phnom Penh, covers an area of 600 x 400 meters. During the KR regime it was enclosed by two folds of corrugated iron sheets, all covered with dense, electrified barbed wire, to prevent anyone from escaping the prison. Houses around the four school buildings were used as administration, interrogation and torture offices.

Other branches of S-21 were located elsewhere. One was S-21 (kor), which was located in Ta Khmao provincial town in Kandal province south of Phnom Pehn; another was S-21 (khor) located at Prey Sar (a colonial era prison), west of Phnom Penh, in Dang Kore District, Kandal province. S-21 (khor) was also known as Office 24 and was used as a re-education camp not only for KR military Division 170, but also for all kinds of people including staff members of S-21, who were accused of minor crimes. S-21 (khor) was responsible for producing agricultural supplies for the S-21 complex.

All the classrooms of Tuol Sleng high school were converted into prison cells. All the windows were enclosed by iron bars, and covered with tangled barbed wire to prevent possible escape by prisoners. The classrooms on the ground floor were divided into small cells, 0.8 x 2 meters each, designed for single prisoners. The rooms on the top floors of the four buildings, each measuring 8 x 6 meters, were used as mass prison cells. On the middle floors of these buildings, cells were built to hold female prisoners.

At first, the interrogations were conducted in the houses around the prison. However, because women taken to the interrogation rooms were often raped by the interrogators, in 1978 the chief of the S-21, a former teacher named Kang Kek Ieu alias Comrade Duch, decided to convert Building B for use as an interrogation office, as this made it easier to control the interrogation process.

The Security office and its branches were under the authority of the Central Committee and the KR Minister of Defense, Comrade Son Sen alias Khieu, who appointed Comrade Duch to head the S-21 system. Comrade Duch was born as Kang Kek Ieu in Sho Yok village, Chine Thbong sub-district, Kampong Thom province. He was a mathematics teacher before he joined the Khmer Rouge.

According to Cambodia Scholar, David Chandler, Kang Kek Ieu won a scholarship to Lycee Sisowath in the late 1950s, and taught briefly in his specialty: mathematics in Kampong Thom province with Comrade Mom Nay alias Chan before going to Pedagogique, where he fell under the spell of some Chinese students sent from China to learn Khmer. Kang Kek Ieu also taught his speciality in Kampong Cham province briefly before being arrested as a Communist in 1965. After being released, he seemed to have disappeared into the woods.

The Research Committee on Genocide of the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) reported in 1983 that in order to maintain security and to manage all the activities in S-21 prison and its branches, in 1976 the KR regime employed a large staff divided into 4 units responsible for S-21, S-21 (ka), S-21 (kor) and S-21 (khor). The units were:

A. Internal workforce ..........141

B. Office personnel ..........1,148

C. Interrogation units ............54

D. General workers ..........1,377

The number of workers in the S-21 complex totaled 1,720. Most of the "general workers" were under confinement at Prey Sar.

Within each unit, there were several sub-units composed of male and female children ranging from 10-15 years of age. These young children were trained and selected by the KR regime to work as guards at S-21. Most of them started out as normal before growing increasingly evil. They were exceptionally cruel and disrespectful toward the prisoners and their elders.

There were two management offices. One was Duch's office and the other was his office for interrogation, documentation and general administration. Ill or injured prisoners were treated by paramedics in their respective cells. Treatment was available three times per day. There were no hospital services inside the prison. The medical personnel were untrained and mostly children.

The victims in the prion were taken from all parts of the country and from all walks of life. They were of different nationalities and included Vietnamese, Laotians, Thai, Indians, Pakistanis, British, Americans, Canadians, new Zealanders, and Australians, but the vast majority were Cambodians. The civilian prisoners composed of workers, farmers, engineers, technicians, intellectuals, professors, teachers, students, and even ministers and diplomats. Moreover, whole families of the prisoners, from the bottom on up, including their newly born babies, were taken there en masse to be exterminated.

According to the KR reports found at Tuol Sleng Archive, the influx and outflux of prisoners from 1975 - June 1978 were recorded on lists. Some documents have disappeared. One report estimated the number of prisons as follows:

1975 .........................154 prisoners

1976 ......................2,250 prisoners

1977 ......................2,330 prisoners

1978 ......................5,765 prisoners



The guide, a baby of 3 when the Khmer first rolled into the capitol, points to a board of the Khmer Rouge youth
who were responsible for carrying out the torture in Tuol Sleng S-21.
 

These figures, totaling 10,499, do not include the number of children killed by the KR regime at S-21, which was estimated by the same report at 2,000.

The reports show that in 1977 and 1978, the prison on average held between 1,200 and 1,500 prisoners at any time. The duration of imprisonment ranged from 2-4 months, although some important political prisoners were held between 6-7 months.

The prisoners were kept in their respective small cells and shackled with chains fixed to the walls or the concrete floors. Prisoners held in the large mass cells had one or both of their legs shackled to short or long pieces of iron bar. The short iron bar was about 0.8 meters up to 1 meter long and was designed for 4 prisoners. Prisoners were fixed to the iron bar on alternative sides, so they had to sleep with their heads in opposite directions.

Before the prisoners were placed in the cells they were photographed, and detailed biographies of their childhood up to the dates of their arrests were recorded. Then they were stripped to their underwear. Everything was taken away from them. The prisoners slept directly on the floors without any mats, mosquito nets or blankets.

Every morning at 4:30am, all prisoners were told to removed their shorts, down to the ankles, for inspection by prison staff. Then they were told to do some physical exercise just by moving their hands and legs up and down for half an hour, even though their legs remained restrained by the iron bars. The prison staff inspected the prisoners 4 times per day; sometimes the inspection unit from the security office made a special check over the prisoners. During each inspection, the prisoners had to put their arms behind their backs and at the same time raise their legs so that the guards could check wither or not the shackles were loose. If loose, the shackles were replaced. The prisoners had to defecate into small iron buckets and urinate into small plastic buckets kept in their cells. They were required to ask for permission from the prison guards in advance of relieving themselves; otherwise, they were beaten or they received 20-60 strokes with a whip as punishment. In each cell, the regulations were posted on small pieces of black board. The regulations read as follows"

1. You must answer accordingly to my questions. Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor [sic].
9. If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations, you shall get ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

When I heard my camera click on this picture, I suddenly felt sick and wondered what kind of a person I am to take such a picture of horror. In the commemorative stupa is a large collection of skulls - from the victims of Tuol Sleng. In the barbed-wire enclosed compound, people walking around will see bones jutting from the ground from mass burials. The museum curators do not collect the bones that people find but leave them there, and when a very large number has washed up, they are collected and interred somewhere. The bones keep washing up ... and it's eery to know that you are walking on bones that you're not seeing ...

... or to see chickens scratching among the sufacing bones ....

The prisoners were required to abide by all the regulations. To do anything, even to alter their positions while trying to sleep, the inmates had first to ask permission from the prison guards. Anyone breaching these rules was severely beaten. Prisoners were bathed by being rounded up into a collective room where a tube of running water was placed through the window to splash water on them for a short time. Bathing was irregular, allowed only once very two or three days, and sometimes once a fortnight. Unhygienic living conditions caused the prisoners to become infected with diseases like skin rashes and various other diseases. There was no medicine for treatment.

Tuol Sleng as a Museum

In the wake of the renovation following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Tuol Sleng, opened as a museum of the atrocities of the genocide. In the 1980s, most visitors were local people, whereas foreign visitors were principally from certain socialist countries like Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Laos, Hungary, Poland and others from the Eastern bloc. Since the 1993 election and the establishment of the Kingdom of Cambodia, most of the visitors to Tuol Sleng Museum have come mainly from Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Korea, the United States, and other non-communist countries. About 50 people (statistics from the early 2000s) visit the museum a day to witness the horrors or a regime without humanism or conscience.

Trash Island

 

This phenomenal presentation presented by three of my freshmen Academic English students -- Park Soo A, Kim Hyuk, and Han Ji Hyeon -- has been published here by their permission. They did an absolutely wonderful job on their final presentation, so I asked to share it with others :) Well researched!