We started out in Phnom Phen with a brand new couple, Brad and Trish whom we'd met along the way. ("Hey guys, if you're reading this!") We settled into our very expensive en suite room, over looking the lake, for a ghastly $4 a night! Sigh...I miss Cambodia. The area by the lake was amazing. There was a strip of bar restaurants along the water that were so chilled out, but to us were expensive. A whole $3 for a meal. Ludicrous! : )
The next day we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day to take us around to a number of sites. Our first stop was S-21, an elementary school taken over by the Khmer Rouge when they gained power, that was turned into a prison and torture building for four years. Since that was only about 30 years ago, our guide lived through it and told us his own horrific experiences. The prison has been left exactly how it was and we were shocked to see blood still on the cell floors. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were taken here and killed just for being educated. We didn't think that things could get more gruesome after the War Remnant Museum in Vietnam, but it got much much worse. On our way out of S-21 there were dozens of severely burned and disfigured people walking around like zombies, begging outside the gates. It was very sad and very disturbing.
From there we went straight to the killing fields. Yes, its a movie. Definitely see it. The killing fields used to be an orchard, then the Khmer Rouge started killing off hundreds of civilians a day and burying them, some still alive, in mass burial sites. Almost the entire ground in a quarter of the orchard has been excavated with small paths to walk between the large ditches that remain. Over half is still not excavated and hundreds of thousands off bodies still remain under the earth. Shocking, was the large monument in the middle of the fields with layer upon layer of human skulls, categorized into sex and age. It was overwhelming to say the least. What was even more horrific were the human bones and rags attached to them sticking out of the ground, that we noticed as we walked around. Actual human skeletons sticking out of the ground! Things you would never see in the western world. In the end, 2 million Cambodians were killed in that four year period and Cambodia's population went down by a full quarter. It is said that there is nearly an entire generation missing. How incredibly sad. A really good book that is the personal account of a little girl recruited by the Khmer Rouge who was one of few who survived, is called, First They Killed My Father. It is an amazing true story and I highly recommend it.
Well, our day continued to be disturbing. We went to a shooting range where you can shoot anything from a handgun to an AK-47. I wasn't into it, but of course boys like to shoot things. In the end no one ended up shooting anything, but we did find out some very troubling information. The military has realized how much money they can make from western sickos coming over wanting to destroy things. So, on a menu that isn't outright advertised, anyone can order a chicken, a pig, or a cow, to blow up as their target. How disgusting is that?
Phnom Phen has such an incredible history and you'd think with everything they have been through that they would be very angry people. During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, many of the people who were banished into the country had their residency permanently changed. After the Khmer Rouge were driven out, they tried to return to the city only to find out that they were still not allowed to work, so doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, etc. are living in the city illegally and are forced to scrape by riding tuk-tuks and other comparably low paying jobs. The whole situation is so sad.
The few days in the city had brought us down a bit and we decided to head up north to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. This is something some people wait their whole live to see!
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