Phnom Penh and down the Mekong Delta to Chau Doc

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June 28th 2008

Published: June 28th 2008

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LisaandMartyn

S21 Prison

Hello Everyone

Well we had a lovely 2 days in Phnom Penh, Cambodias capitial city. Martyn took quite a shine to both the local beers Angkor and Anchor smooth and as we only had 2 days left in Cambodia he felt the need to drink the place dry, not that I was complaining of course.

In amongst all this drinking we seen some heartbreaking sights at Tuol Sleng (S21 Prison) and Choung Ek (The Killing Fields). To give a very brief Cambodian history lesson, from 1975 until 1979 (but carried on until the late 80's) the Khmer Rouge committed the most horrendous genocide within Cambodia. They killed 2 million of their own population. For reasons as simple as being an ethnic minority, an itellectual or those with ties to foreigners or the overthrown government.

S21 Prison was the prisoners last stop before the Killing Fields, Pol Pot used this former high school as a place of torture and fear for anyone he deemed too intellectual or educated for his now regime. S21 is now museum with the cells still kept as they were so you truly see what kind of hell these people went throgh only 30 years

S21 Prison

Only a tiny percent of the amount of people that were incarncinated

ago. There are mug shots of hundreds of people that passed through S21 on their way to be executed at the The Killing fields. Pol Pot showed no mercy to anyone there are men, woman, girls, boys toddlers, babies in there mothers arms its shocking. It shows the way they were tortured for "confessions" it was inhumane.

So next stop was The Killing Fields. It is a very peaceful field with grass and flowers all around until you dt know that the holes in the ground were mass grave sites it would be just like any other field. That and the monument they have erected at the entrance which holds hundreds of skulls that were exhumed from these mass grave sites. They are now held in the monument in honour of all those that suffered at Pol Pots hands. All in all some very sad stuff but to read everything about what happened such a short time ago Cambodia is really coming into its own and we loved the country we thought the people were friendly and helpful, and although the begging here is very bad you are going to find that to some extentent in every country arent

S21 Prison

The rules and regulations

you. We were sad we only had 5 days here but time is of the essence now.

So we left Phnom Penh for our cruise down the Mekong River, over the border into Vietnam and to Chau Doc. So glad we did it this way it was great and we seen so many sights once we got the Vietnam side it was amazing, and the border crossing was lovely and easy nothing to it! Although we only managed to get a 15 day visa for Vietnam instead of a 30 day one so looks like it will be 2 more nights in Bangkok before we head home, Martyn is delighted - buckets and ping pong shows!

So we stayed last night in Chau Doc, it was the perfect place to start Vietnam off, although seemingly it is the most visited town on the Mekong Delta it was so untouristy it was unreal. I was struggling find a packet of M&M's, and that never happens! We got a very rickety mimi bus to Saigon this morning and we'll stay here a couple of days before heading up the coast.

Lots Of Love xx

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