Page 35 - Nomads Magazine Issue 7

Everything stopped for a moment, then one of the guys grabbed Po and held him still. While this was all going on in front of me, I gradually started walking backwards towards the wall of mounted rearms, to put some distance between the loaded gun, the angry man and myself. The shouting and abuse continued as I reached the wall.I noticed out the corner of my eye, in between the rows of guns were some very old photos of what looked like army trucks and men with the rearms that were mount- ed on the walls around me. I knew about the history of Cambodia and my instinct was to start taking photos, but out of sheer fear I couldn’t get my bag open. The men became a little concerned with my apparent interest in the photos on the walls, as they noticed that I was quietly trying to get into my camera bag.This observation must have rattled the men somewhat because they released Po. Upon his release, we both ran to the tuktuk, started it up and left very quickly without looking back. We returned to Siem Reap with little said between us. I was in a state of shock. My wife later told me that I hadn’t said much to her for at least two days after leav- ing Cambodia. After a long bus ride back to Bangkok, I remember replaying the events over in my head. As a photographer, I was kicking myself for not getting a single photo of the whole ordeal. However, I’m sure if I dared to take just one snap, I wouldn’t be alive to tell this story now.Editor’s Note: The Khmer Rouge was a communist guerrilla organization which opposed the Cambodian government in the 1960’s and waged a civil war in 1970, taking power in 1975. The organization is re- membered especially for orchestrating the Cambodian genocide.34