Packed and ready

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So let's start with the motorbikes.

Yes, I rode around on a motorbike for a bit, 100cc Honda. And yes, it has been reconfirmed that I have no sense of balance. But Amit is quite good on those things, so we rented one, and I've been staring at the back of his head the whole day yesterday.

First we went to the Killing Fields. located 12km outside of Phnom Pehn, it is the site of the Khmer Rouge massacre. The journey there was bumpy and dusty. The road was lined by construction. We frequently found ourselves behind large trucks spewing out clouds of dust and smoke. A few hidden "speed-bumps" sent us into the air occasionally. We were making good time, until we realized that we'd taken a wrong turn at some point. That's when we realized that maybe it wasn't so smart of us to venture out of the city without knowing where we're supposed to go... "if we get there, it'd be purely out of luck." And lucky we were! We had to backtrack a couple of times, but we ran into two english speaking natives who were able to give us directions (by English speaking I mean we were 73.4% sure we understood each other during the conversation). The second one even lead us part of the way.

The monument was a pagoda-like structure, 4-5 stories tall, filled with skulls. Victims of the massacre. It was a strange experience. Standing there, a pagoda full of skulls surrounded by grass and trees and butterflies, and then it slowly dawns on you that you're surrounded by pits, pits that were used to burry the victims, all whole field of them... They're overgrown with grass, which makes them hard to notice at first, but once I noticed them, they stood out everywhere, and I can't shake the image of these pits filled with bodies...

Our trip back to the city was mostly unremarkable, except for when a vehicle infront of us splattered mud all over us. We got back into the city safely, covered in dirty and mud, and we're both reminded of the Motorcycle Diaries; we too have witnessed the remnant of a shocking atrocity, but how will this experience effect us in the future?

On our way back we stopped by the Toul Sleng Museum. It's the site of tourture and prison of the Khmer Rouge during the revolution. It was actually converted from a elementary school. Standing in the courtyard, the building looks shockingly similar to my elementary school in china. Four stories of classrooms, with stair cases on the sides of the building. But the inside has been turned into small prison cells, with chains and shackles and tools of torture. One room was lined with photos of victims, all staring back at you. The fact that it was a school, and that fact that some of the torture apparatus was converted from children's monkey-bars and other playground structures, made it more disturbing than anything i've seen before... perhaps it's because the images were linked to memories of my childhood...

I wasn't able to complete the tour of the museum. I sat down on a tree stump, and closed my eyes for a while...

We returned to our hostel, Floating Island, and lounged for the rest of the night. Our hostel is built over a lake, a wooden shack open on all three sides, letting in the breeze over the lake. We had dinner overlooking the lake. The sunset was beautiful. There was music playing in the background, and my fried beef with rice was superb. Life can't be better... the breeze, the music, the food, the... mosquitoes...
I killed 4-5 of them, but there were too many, and they were closing in on me, the deafening buzz was the only clue that they're around as they swooped in and out in attack formations too complex to describe. We needed reinforcements.
Skin-So-Soft??? SSS sounds better. But it's basically a bug repellant that leaves your skin silky smooth. Thanks Amy, my arms are like the soft bottoms of new born infants now.

This morning we visited the Tonle Sap river front to catch sunrise. There was a group of elderly cambodians, dancing to some asian pop music. It's like Taebo and Taichi mixed into one, a spectacular sight.

We decided to ride on one of the fishing boats on the river, and approached a local fisherman. After much gesturing and raising our voices as we spoke english to them, it was somehow understood that they will take us on a ride for $1.
The boat was small and wobbly. On the boat was a fisherman, his wife, and his son. The cutest little camera-happy Cambodian kid ever, and boy he likes to pose! As the boat cruised along the river, the kid walked up behind me and wrapped his arm around mine, and we sat watching the sunrise over the river. Oh yeah, there was also a basket of freshly caught fish to my right, all of them alive and flicking up water at me.

After we left the river front, we went back to our hostel, checked out, and returned our motorbike. We're now waiting to head out to Siem Reap, tomorrow, we will visit the Angkor Wat.

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