In an unsavoury footnote to one of history's most brutal regimes, Pol Pot's toilet seat, which once supported the most feared bottom in Asia, has been reduced to a mere tourist curiosity in the northern Cambodian town of Siem Reap.
"All sorts of people used to come in and take photos with it," said Karl Balch, owner of the Ivy guesthouse where the seat was previously on public display.
"That was why I took it down, I thought somebody was going to nick it." Balch, 37, an expat Briton, who pinched Pol Pot's seat during a tour of remote northern Cambodia in 1998.
"I went on a motorbike trip to An Long Keng, on the Thai border, with a friend of mine," said Balch. "He's got a few connections and he managed to get us taken up to Pol Pot's destroyed house."The place was trashed. There was nothing left, all that was left was the floor.
"There were two toilet seats. I got one and somebody else got the other one."
The find has not been verified by independent experts, but Balch reckons it could be a collector's item one day.
"Maybe my son in 50 years will be able to sell it to some moron for a fortune," he said. "It's just a giggle."
