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Published: January 11th 2007
Yes, skulls
At the killing fields - they had a monument tower with about 8000 of the skulls they have been able to retrieve from the grave, all set out on shelvesso today we had a little sleep in, accidently - we are staying in this nuts guesthouse, that is very very noisy and jess got a little paranoid all night that people were breaking into our room... i managed to sleep right through all the noise, not helping with jess' freaking out as i was no help and sleep talking back to her about how cute it was... anyho headed into the city, sorted out a laos visa and then went to the killing fields. As you can imagine from the name, it wasn't the most uplifting destination. But incredible at the same time - it was the sight of a mass grave - between 1975-1978, about 17000 men, women, and children were tortured and killed here. They had on display over 8000 skulls from these mass graves and the insane bit is that those numbers are only from the 43 mass graves dug up... there are 129 all up at this spot. You walked over some of the communal graves and could see bones and clothing underneath the dirt. We then headed to an even more intense place, the S-21 Prison (which is now a Museum) - gee, cannot explain
Killing Fields
If it comes up clearly enough, try to read some of it. It's pretty powerful. this one... It was a 'secret' prison of the Khmer Rouge - where everyone of those 17000 people were photographed before they were killed and also photos of them after the torture. It was an extremely depressing experience - especially as it was all so so recent and it is in the middle of the city - kids playing, washing drying, life going on... Phnom Penh is weird, it has quite a nice feel, but you do sense the ghost town that it was in its recent past...
anyway, we ate some wonderful Indian tonight - yes, i know i am in Cambodia, but the cook was Indian =) great. Then had a few drinks at the ladies night on our boat thing... suddenly when we went to pay for our really cheap beer (that honestly tasted like blood), the 50% ladies discount had vanished and a whopping US$2 appeared.
We love you all - so so great to hear from people, it's really exciting, so keep it up - tell us about your day, the trip to the supermarket, work, boys, girls - we want your messages xoxoxo
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Trev
non-member comment
Phnom Penh
Yeah, the Khmer Rouge were definitely a bunch of baddies. It is amazing what extreme behaviours human beings are capable of, on both ends of the spectrum. Don't worry about people trying to get into your room at night Jeffi...it won't happen if you just lock the door. Go to sleep! It does take a little getting used to with all of the stimulation, people and noise around you all of the time. Very soon that will become normal and then quiet will be too quiet. The fresh coconut juice is wonderful isn't it? In "the old days" in Sri Lanka in bush-hospitals they apparently used to filter a certain type of (orange outer casing)coconut water/juice and put it into very sick people via intravenous drip instead of injectable intravenous water.....amazing stuff! Have fun, look after each other. luv Trev x.