Category: Explorations

My round 5 exploration is focusing on Khmer Rouge. This exploration has continued for 4 rounds and this is the last round. Round 1 which focused on the rise of Khmer Rouge, round 2 focused on during Khmer Rouge, round 3 focused on the fall of Khmer Rouge and last but not least round 4 focused on the downfall and after Khmer Rouge. In this exploration, we relook at the timeline of Khmer Rouge and discuss how they fall; furthermore, what happens after they fail. In every course that we took, we get to visit places that are relevant to our topic; therefore, we took a visit to the Choeung Ek Killing Field, S-21, and ECCC. 

Our first trip is to the killing field, the killing field was a place that Khmer Rouge soldiers used to execute people. Khmer Rouge had turned the peaceful Choeung Ek village into a miserable place where they executed thousands of people and buried them in mass graves. Nowadays, this place is under conserved and serve as a museum for new generations to visit this historical tragedy place. As this place has been developed, there are audio tours available more than 10 languages that help even foreigners to understand this brutal regime. We took an audio tour around the killing field trying to get the feeling of how would people at that time feel when they were sent there. It was creepy and at the same time emotional to see people having abnormal fate and experienced this terrible genocide. 

But, before all of these people were executed, they need to experience another torturous sanction place called S-21. S-21 was previously known as a normal high school and was turned into a prison during the period of Khmer Rouge regime. This prison was led by Kang Kek Iew was also known as Duch. He was sent to trial at Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, ECCC, he was charged with crimes against humanity, murder, and torture as his role during Khmer Rouge’s rule. He was then sent to life imprisonment. Overall, we visited the S-21 and it’s even more creepy than the killing field. They wouldn’t allow people to die easily but torture them until the end of their breath. There were only seven known survivors. This place also offers audio tours in different languages and get people to reflect on what it looks like to be tortured. 

Our last visit is to the ECCC, Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia. The ECCC’s plan is to come to an end of the remaining people including Nuon Chea and Kheiu Samphan after doing this trial for over than a decade. On that day, we have presented the closing statements of the trial. 

It was astonishing to be a part of this exploration since history also a part of favorites thing to learn; furthermore, to deeply understand this immense part of the history of Cambodia, The Khmer Rouge Regime.  

During of our fourth round of exploration in 2016-2017, I’ve been assigned in an exploration, Geology of Cambodia, which focuses on exploring rocks and geological history of Cambodia.  We went to provinces in Cambodia including, Kep, Kampot, Kampong Cham, Koh Kong, Mondulkiri, and Ratanakiri. We explored rocks that are made mysteriously around Cambodia and other parts of geology including tectonic plates. 

Our final product is to be able to understand how to explain the process that we have learned throughout the weeks to explain and spread the words to other Cambodians.  We also created a facebook page where we posted and shared all these information that we’ve learned to other Cambodians.   

Facebook Link

As I said that I’m in Climate Change exploration. In this exploration we have a trip to go to Koh Seh. Koh Seh is near Vietnam border. We leave on Monday 30 January and come back on Friday 3 February. First we ride a bus to Kep, then take a boat to that islands. This islands is 1 hour further than Rabbit island. We go there to understand about marine conversation, ocean acidification.

This place is such a very nice place. We also did some snorkeling in this amazing ocean. We did snorkeling to see coral reefs in Koh Seh and also some snorkeling in Koh Angkrong. These place has an amazing coral reefs.

While we are learning at there, some of my friends are doing some project about ocean. A couple of my friends, Soliday and Venghour are deploying their project called artificial reefs and a couple more students. One name, Somphors, is deploying his project called using rattles to grow consumable algae is red sea lotus. Another one, Sreynith, is using rattles to grow seagrapes.

I can say it was an amazing trip. We met awesome people and have an unforgettable memories. Big thanks to our teacher, Karen, who organize this trip well with flexibility.