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Grand Palace
It's a series of buildings mostly in this ornate style WARNING: if you are squeamish, there are photographs of the Killing Fields at the end of the entry.
Have you ever been looked forward to reaching a place and yet dreading it at the same time? Penomh Penh was that for me. I was keen to see the capital and saddened that this would be my final stop in Cambodia.
There was so much to see in the city which was much busier than the rest of Cambodia, there was traffic! And shops! I saw actual shopping centres, this was a real shock after so much countryside where shops had still had the exterior of shacks. The signs contrast between the rich and the poor was much clearer here.. In the smaller villages and towns most of the houses were of the same style and shape and there wealth was hard to guage. In the capital there were big houses and kids left to sleep alone on mats on the street.
When we arrived at our hotel, the very first thing we were shown (even before they checked out ids) was a photograph. They were clearly very proud to say that they were the hotel that Elton
Monks
They were walking around everywhere John stayed in! I never did find out which room he had stayed in, I would love to say it had been my room. But that was the only brush with celebrities as the capital took us back in time to some pretty and some murky bits of its past.
The Grand Palace was not the most spectacular to look at from the distance, there is little to say about the shape of the buildings but the details on the buildings and the gardens themselves were enough to make me want to spend hours there. Of course I’d looked it up in my guide book and had been hyped up by tha accounts of the Silver Pagoda. It sounded rich and shiny. However the Silver Pagoda turned out to be disappointing. Only the floor was silver and it was covered by a large rug so it was only possible to catch peaks of it. Again like so manyt imes on the travels my highlight came from two monks who sat and talked with us. They weren’t what I would call focused on religion, one was studying law and hoped to move into that career at some point. I learned
Mosaics
Once again everywhere you looked they were there many became monks because of the routes in education it opened up to them. Nor were they very humble as they asked us to buy cokesfor them! I still don’t think I’ve recovered from the cheek of them. I wish I had a photograph to show of them with their cans but they hid the cans behind them the minute we asked to take a photograph of them. The image of Buddhists monks I had in my head and the reality are very different.
I had no image in my head of what to expect from the Killing Fields and the prison s21. What I did see when I visited them is imprinted on my brain I thought I could remain impartial and hear the gory details with detatchment. I was wrong, even know, I find this very hard to type up. For anyone going to Cambodia I say to you, you should go, you should see the pain and the suffering, so the horrors are never fogotten or repeated. I don’t though anyone can visit those places twice.
Our guide who took us around was visibly upset as he told the stories. He said it never got
Friendly Monks
Would be lawyers or anything but Monks. easier to do the tours. Before we entered the prison he shocked us by warning us that there were a lot of facts that he still couldn’t tell us because many people responsible for the genocides were still high up in government. It gave us something to think about as he lead us in to the former school. The school buildings were drag, barbed wire surrounded many of the buildings. Classrooms had become tiny prison cells and what must have been the play area was domainted by a hanging post. The only bright things were the seven white tombs of the last people to die there. They are the only bodies buried there, the last before the liberators arrived in the capital. The rest of the people were killed and dumped in the killing fields.
The Killing Fields themselves are a chilling place to walk through. The path through the graves is littered with bits of bone teeth and clothes. It was impossible to avoid stepping some. Very few of the mass graves have been opened and I can see why they think opening more would only cause the country more grief. It’s horrifying to look at the displays
Flowers
Everywhere you looked there were the water flowers of bones that have already been dug up. I don’t think I’d ever want to know what other mutaliations have been commited on the bodies. I suppose you want the stories I heard but I can’t do specifics. All I will say is that many of the executioners feel no remorse and say they were only doing their job.
It took awhile to shake off the feeling from the Killing Fields. It wasn’t until I was deep inside the Russian Market that I began to cheer up. Nope I didn’t do a lot of retail therapy but it was impossible not to start responding to the smiles and the chatter around me in the market stalls. I finished off my day with a trip to the monkey temple! It was fun feeding the monkies and watching their antics all around me and over the paths.
I wish I could stay in Cambodia a little longer, or in fact a lot longer. But I know I will be back some day.
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