a tuk tuk took us to our hotel. which is the nicest hotel here. i didnt really realize how expensive the hotel was in relation to other hotels here or what money means here versus in the US. anyways, we are ending our trip in style.
we hired a tuk tuk guy to drive us to the killing fields. on the way he asked us if we wanted to to a shooting range. i immediately said yes. lindsey was really upset. we talked about it. i felt it was a once in a moment oppurtunity. something that was being shown to us that we may never see again. an experience, even if tramatic, i would want to have.
on the way there we realized that our guide was a rebel. for about five minutes i was 90% sure we were going to die. driving down a red dirt road. men with scarves on their heads...huts with hammocks. no police. nobody to ask for help. we turned down a tiny bumpy dusty road...where i could not see much of anything ahead of us. other than men wading in a milkey river next to the road. starring at me with "you're going to die" eyes. i meditated and had faith.
we got to the shooting range where there was a manmade body of water and a hut fenced in with brick walls. three cambodian men. a wall of guns. and two white boys that looked 18...talking about how they wanted to throw hand grenades. through a crack in the wall i was able to see that there was a field of brown grass and mounds of dirt. they sat us at a wooden table and handed us two menus. at the top was a cartoon of a man with a gun. the bottom a giant clip art text that said "DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH MENU" the first thing on the menu was...the types of guns, how many bullets you got and where the gun was manufactured. then there were a list of beverages. coke, sprite, water, etc.
i went to the wall of guns. held the AK 47. and said "I want to shoot this one please" so we walked toward a wooden red door and he had me put on a camo jacket....as if i was trying to replicate a soldier. a US soldier at that. i immediately felt threatened and uncomfortable. i told lindsey to come in and take pics. she was very nervous and i could sense by her body language she and i both thought we might be in for more than we could bare to handle. we put on earprotectors. and he sat me down and forcefully showed me how to shoot it. upon sitting i look down a very long hall where at the end were 20 black tires and in the middle a target. he said."hit the target" he loaded the gun. with a real magazine of bullets. and cocked it. i shot. i almost died. my heart was racing i felt the shot everywhere in my body. i had twenty nine bullets to go.
he was being extremely demanding and hurrying me along....as if he had no comprehension of how utterly horrifying this was for me already.
i shot 20. i told him i was done. i was going to vomit. i told lindsey she really needed to try it. she did. 2 bullets. then i finished it off.
i got up abruptly paid him his thirty dollars and asked the tuk tuk guy to take us away. now. i told the canadian boys they should try the AK 47. i made a couple really tastless jokes about america and guns and felt even worse.....then i reminded them that the guns they were going to shoot were probably used to kill somebody at some point...
