Patrol to Angkor Wat (1970)
Distance from Siem Reap to Angkor Wat is 5 km. It took us five hours to get to the temple; we ran into three ambushes (1 K.I.A. 12 W.I.A’s) It took us one hour to get back.
June 28-July 6, 1970 Siem Reap. The military had taken over the Grand Hotel. The tourist buses stood empty.
Siem Reap was surrounded by the Khmer Rouge. Food had to be smuggled through the lines. Fresh food market: soldiers had to cook for themselves.
Coming back from a patrol. The road out of Siem Reap. The sign reads: "Thank You! Come back again." Before the war, 1969, a couple of thousand tourists a year. In 2024, over two million!
A prisoner of war. In the beginning of the war the soldiers, being Buddhist, refused to kill. A year later they cut of heads with pocket knives, separating the soul from the body.
Siem Reap was full with refugees.
Refugees.
Life continued: washing in the river
Playing in the rain.
Plans were made for a patrol to Angkor Wat.
Only 5 km away.
July 5, 1970 We're on our way to Angkor Wat. 08:00 hrs, Time to go.
Many of the girl soldiers were former students of the destroyed Lycee.
On the way to Angkor Wat was what was left of the Lycee.
Close to Angkor Wat: 'Auberge des Temples'
The Khmer rouge fired a shot to hide the sound of a mortar being fired.
No ambulance to take the wounded back to Siem Reap.
A soldier next to me had his leg blown off. I ran over. There was nothing I could do. In shock he looked at his leg, at his groin pumping blood and back to his severed leg.
The soldiers rushed to get blessed by a Buddhist priest, who had appeared from the temple.
It took us five hours from Siem Reap to Angkor Wat-5 km. Three times we were ambushed.
The return to Siem Reap was a joyous one. It took one hour and not a shot was fired.
The girls sang school songs and picked flowers when they reached the Lycee.
It would be nine years till the Khmer Rouge was defeated in 1979.
And none of them had been hurt.
They're running out of wood, furniture from destroyed homes are used to cremate the dead.
Too many dead. They were running out of wood.
A brief ceremony.
When they ran out of wood, the K.I.A. were buried behind the Hotel Royal.
The back of the Grand Hotel d'Angkor