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Published: November 28th 2006
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All these people have names
and family. They probably had to watch their own family get tortured and die in front of them. Very Sad Everything I heard about Cambodia's capital city was somewhat negative. Nobody said not to go there, but the incredible poverty was always mentioned. I pictured a whole city is ruins. I picured it not to much better than the Kmer Rouge left it 25 years ago. The images in my head were wrong! Well for the most part anyway.
It's actually a beautiful city, that comes to life most when the hat is less intense around 5pm or so. 1000's and 1000's of motorbikes on the streets half of them slowing down to see if we need a ride anywhere. The streets near where we stayed are lined with nice hotels and beautiful palm trees. It's actually a really pleasant and the riverside is one of the nicest in all of Asia. We can see a lot of elderly people like to visit this town, staying in fancy hotels. We are staying on the lakeside which is a backpacker ghetto but really cool. The alley is filled with cheap $6.00 guesthouses overlooking the lake, restaurants selling buckets of liquor (750 ml bottle + coke + redull) for $6.00. People puking from too much bucket. And Cambodian dope dealers trying to
Torture
Just one of the 100's of images of torture during the Khmer Rough Regimne make a dime.
Although quite pleasant this is the capital of a struggling country called Cambodia. Yo can see the poverty. Little kids on the street begging fopr money. Some carrying infants with them. Blind people singing while being led by a 4 year old who takes the place of a seeing eye dog. I wonder if she really knows where she's bringing him, it looks like he's going straight into traffic.
Our first trip was to the killing Fields and the torture mueseum. it goes without aying that this was a really depressing day and it makes you wonder about humanity. We arrived at the Killing fields to see our first site of 8000 human skulls in a monument 100 feet high. You could reach out and touch them. We read about how we are standing on a mass grave site where the Kmer Rouge did the worst of their atrocities. I'm currently reading a really good book I bought off a street kid called "First they killed my Father" It explains a little girls story about her and her family living the through Pol Pots regigm. It's pretty chilling stuff, but it helps me envision what
More Skulls
8000 of them or so life was like then. I'd read the book how she explains Phnom Phenm and then look outside and see the same thing.
The skulls were eerie but walking on the mass graves was more so. I saw holes where 100's of bodies were just thrown in like ragdolls. It was pretty tame but then I saw some clothing half in the dirt and half out. I thought that it may be from the dead. I took a closer look and the material was still soft. I thought it couldn't have survived for 25 years like this. I then found a tooth. A real human tooth. I picked it up but quickly placed it back down and sawwhat looked like leg bones sticking out of the dirt. I could now see what I didn't see for the last 20 minutes. Evidence of 8000 people buried benith me in the most horrific ways.
We got back in our tuk tuks but weren't as talkitive on the way back. We knew our next stop was the torture museum. It was an old schoolhouse that the Khmer Rouge used to jail and torture their victims. It was left exactly the same how
Temple
After Thailand and Angkor Wat we're pretty templed out. But for some reason they still continue to draw us to them! it was found many years ago. Except now it has graphic pictures real and fake of what it was like there. We leanred of the Kmer Rouge throwing babies in the air one by one playing baseball with them so they kill them without using precious bullets. The torture these people went throug over 4 years is can not be easily described in words. I recomend reading the book I'm reading since we don't learn about this for some reason back home in Canada. We left the place feeling saddened, especially seeing burned victims and amputees begging for money at the entrance. Pretty intense stuff!
Enough about that though. Cambodia may sound depressing in my blogs because I mention the poverty and begging a lot. But it's really a pleasant and beautiful place to visit. I'd even recomend it to my own Mother! haha
It's a crazy city actually picture elephants on the street and dirty city monkeys playing in the trash. Great photo opportunities!
My only bad experience is the damn bus. Our backpacks are stored underneath the bus. I guess so was someones bucket of fish goo. It leaked and completely drenched my backpack. ONLY
More Skulls
8000 of them or so my backpack. All my clothes reak like FISH!!! It's so bad. I had to wit 24 hours to get my laundry in, having it bake in the heat, intensifying the smell and scrub my backpack in the shower. Beacuse the first place wouldn't accept it. It stunk that bad!!! GRRRR!!
haha next stop Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Viet Nam!
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emotionz
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sounds dope...
sounds great dave, i keep lookin forward to your next posts.........looks like you two are havin a wicked time, rip that up. see ya soon, peace emotionz