The Killing Fields

In the countryside near Phnomh Pen we visited the nightmare of Pol Pot's so-called Killing Fields whose real name I shall add later. I had read about the horrors in both fiction and history, but the reality of walking on the dusty paths from which pale bones and black rags of clothing still protrude - exposed by the monsoon then set as in concrete by the dry season - held more power than any words.

Unless they were the words of our local guide, a former boy soldier forced to kill or be himself used for target practice when he was ten and discarded at twelve as useless when he was ill with malaria. Several times he had to stop speaking as the memories overwhelmed him. It was as if each tour was an act of penance. We hardly spoke the whole morning of the visit.