During a drink stop we had a conversation with a 65 year old man. He
told us – in good French – about the Pol Pot days. How thin people
were, because hardly any food, and how scared. If the Khmer rouge only thought you had been a "fonctionair"
(office worker) they killed you immediately. The same if you spoke
Khmer too well, or if you used a word in a foreign language. With
gestures he made clear how they chopped off the head from behind. Very
chilling conversation. Now, he said, most people in the countryside liked Hun
Sen, the prime minister, a lot, because "there is a lot of
development". Worth mentioning that the the prime minister is an
ex-Khmer rouge officer, put in power by the Vietnamese in 1979, who in the nineties chose to ignore the
2 billion dollar UN-organised elections that he lost and take power anyway.