What is noticeable in the Killing Fields of Pnom Phem are Thousands and thousands of bracelets, one on top of another.When i reached the Killing Tree, my audio guide tells me that there used to be blood crusted on the trunk from the bodies of infants that were swung by their legs and smashed against it. And again, bracelets have been hung here; they hang tenuously from little pieces of bark and indeed many lay fallen on the ground.Bracelets were an important part of Baci ceremonies, tied onto a person’s wrist for good luck. But here, visitors slip off whatever they happened to have on their wrist at the time and leaving it behind – as an act of love, or belief, or perhaps of prayer. Choeung Ek graveyards - one home to 450 victims, another that held women and children, a third that was filled with the bodies of Khmer Rouge soldiers, those whom Pol Pot accused of having a “Cambodian body, but Vietnamese head.”
