Happy Pizza and a seriously unhappy history...

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The sign for the supermarket prohibits the unaccompanied children, animals and hand grenades.. Safe in the knowledge that my fellow shopper arent in possession of any anti personnel pineapples and i'm off to grab some "welcome to Cambodia" beers to crack open when paul arrives...its the height of bad form not to have welcome brews when a buddy flies into visit you on trip.

Biggs, as Paul is also known is due in at noon and its ten o clock, plenty of time for me to get the bottles home and cool for his arrival.

I've known biggs since I was 8 years old in Primary school and his visit has been much anticipated. Paul lives in Hong Kong as of some years ago and the privilege it is to spend time with him is something myself and the rest of the boys enjoy far too seldom, the bloke is platinum company and an absolute gent. Paul jumps off the tuk tuk just after noon and after some enthusiastic Bro fists and man hugs, we get stuck into some ice cold bottles of Kingdom Beer, one of Cambodia's finest lagers. By the and when Paul leaves 4 days later i'm surprised Cambodia has any more larger left in it, but more on that later.

Jumping on a tuk tuk we hit the city centre and decide to do what two reunited mates have to do and what Irish culture has ingrained in us: find a resteraunt for a feed prior to a bar so we can get senselessly drunk. Proper order.

We find both, the resteraunt in question is serving pitchers of Angkor beer for 2 dollers us and they have a selection of hamburgers and pizzas as well. Knowing it will be a long day and Angkor fueled weekend and its best that I get something to line to stomach I opt for a pizza.

The place has three of them on the menu, the plain pizza, the vegitarian pizza and the final option is the "happy pizza" which is topped with pepperoni, ham, cheese and peppers...yummy yum yum.

Seeing as the resteraunt is know as the happy cafe I assume this is there quinteessenial uber pizza with all the trimmings so I place an order and begin to start sinking the Angkor with Paul, blondie, in the meantime is tucking into her wine.

The pizza arrives and I begin to tuck in, as any witness can attest, I don't eat pizza I inhale it into my gullet. Jaws eats Nantuket islanders slower then I eat a plate of Italy's finest export. t No sooner is the 6th slice is sliding down my gullet when Niamh, who has been studing the guidebook, suddenly highlights some small print. Little did I know it but a Cambodian Happy pizza is not called a happy pizza for nothing and lets just say the herbs on top werent the oregano I thought it was.

But it didn't say that on the menu! I protested feeling an imaginary timebomb begin ticking in my stomach.

As it turns out the Cambodian goverment banned the funky pizzas years ago and since then the resteraunts continue to sell them by calling them Happy pizzas and not mentioning the special ingrediant on the menu. This was upsetting, as far as I was concerned I was getting a simple stomach lining pizza, the namesake happy I assumed was related to the resteraunts namesake, the happy cafe, much the same way mcdonalds has its bigmac.

What do i do, do I excuse myself and reguritate in the bathroom? Report the resteraunt to the authority's, Cambodia's police force as I discovered on the border is the best police money can buy as they say, for unwittingly doping me with spiked food?...or do I try to ride it out?

Well, I decided to ride it out, if the worst happened, there was also Pig Hunt Sharktapus and Crocsaurus waiting for me back at the hotel.


Happy Pizza or sad, we decided to get some sight seeing done and took a stroll up the river front and visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, after naughty Niamh was suitably covered in extra layers of clothing to make her temple proof. After 2 hours walking around both sights I began to relax as it appeared the ingredients of the happy pizza were having no noticeable effects, I wish I could say the same about the many pitchers of Angkor beer that were enjoyed over the course of the evening.

On the way home we decided to stop off at one of Cambodia's amazing DVD shops. These shops are fully stocked and of course completely rammed with pirate copies. For the price of a snickers you can enjoy the latest Hollywood blockbusters your friends in Ireland are watching in Dundrum cinema, complete with hilarious subtitles and extra “Shakey cam” effects! The box art is also home made and its not unusual to find some films looking a lot cooler then they are, one copy of Alien vs predator had for some reason Jurassic park veliciraptors photo shopped on the box art, Does it make sense, no, is Aliens Vs Predator Vs Veliciraptors a good idea? I think I just peed a little.

Myself and Paul decided to select a few man friendly films and after much careful consideration and narrowing a large number of titles off a shortlist we decided to go with ?” Pig Hunt” “Mega shark Vs Crocosaurus” and last but certainly not least “ Sharktapus”. Lets just say Niamh was a very happy bunny.

Next morning began on quite a different note, firstly both myself and Paul had horrific hangovers and were mutually upset that last nights apres pub movie, the less then thrilling Pig Hunt, turned out to be an absolute stinker...who could see that coming?

Secondly we had decided to see possibly the most harrowing tourist attraction I have ever seen in succession, The Genocide Museum and following that a trip to the killing fields.

When the Khmer Rouge took over the capital in 1975 they swiftly began to set up an agrarian based extreme Maoist regime. The Khmer supporting rural population become the “New People” and the city living Cambodians the “New people”. The new people were marched off into the countryside under pain of death to slave away in huge collective farms in the countryside. Pol pot abolished arts, music and religion. Anyone educated was put to death and millions starved. The calender was abolished and reset at year zero and Cambodia essentially cut itself off from the outside world. Richard Boyd Barret PolPot certainly aint!

Once this mass exodus was complete, the cities and towns around Cambodia were effectively deserted bar some skeleton staff from Pol Pots security forces. As previously mentioned those deemed to be enemies of Pol Pots regime such as intellectuals, the educated and a lot of people he simply didn’t like often did a disturbingly short spell in Security Prison 21 or S21 for short.

Our tuk tuk leaves us off outside the gates and in we go. S21 was prior to the Khmer rouge takeover originally a school but it macabre new found function is immediatly apparent once you get inside. A gallows is situated ominously where the playground once was. Aside the gallows is are large man sized clay pot filled with human excrement where between each half hanging the victim is drowned in shit before they give him another session on the noose.

The classrooms are situated in 3 story blockhouses, each storey is complete with a balcony covered in a fine layer of electrified barb wire to prevent any despaired detainees from attempting suicide by jumping to their death head first. The lower classrooms are fitted with metal beds complete with handcuffs to facilitate electrocution, the cutting of the victims throat or if the unfortunate prisoner was a woman gang rape prior to the previously aforementioned fates.

Most of the rooms are still complete with bloodstains and most have a black and white photograph dipicting the various horrors that were carried out here. Others have thousands and thousands of photographs of those who were “processed” here, all of depicted look shellshocked and ghost like, most sporting cuts and bruises from beatings.

Despite the huge amount of tourists the amount of dread that hangs in the air like a smog keeps the entire yard quiet, the only sounds are the shuffling of feet and the occasional sob when some visitors find the whole thing too much.

The day wasn't going to get any less disturbing when we went to Killing fields of Choeung Elk. Once you finished your spell in S21 this is where you were sent to die. You wouldn't be told this of course, prisoners were simply loaded up into trucks and send on there way. Once here you were lead over to a gaping pit in the field where a Khmer rouge soldier killed you by blunt trauma, slitting your throat or suffocation...bullets were too expensive to waste on such a task.

The killing fields themselves are now a well manicured cared series of lawns around a central monument, you stroll through the flowerbeds listening to the birds chirp and feeling the sun tickle the back of your neck until you come across sign that advises you not to step on the mass grave. Various information signs explain the various deeds that went on here: we see the infant tree where babies heads were beaten aganist, several what appear to be overgrown golf sand bunkers are the remains of some of the dozens of mass graves.

In the centre of the garden is a massive glass tower filled with over 8000 skulls of those who were slaughtered here. The sight of the endless empty staring sockets of the battered skulls all massed on top of one another will turn your bone marrow into slush.

He three of us didn't say much after leaving the Killing fields and it was a fairly quiet tuk tuk ride back to the city centre. Niamh was keen to watch the Royal wedding live on TV and to be honest we all needed a bit of cheering up.

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Photos

The Grand Palace
Complete with furry walls

Sharkapus
Be advised this pirate boxart is no way as cool as the actual film...myself and Biggs were gutted the sharktapus wasn't half bear as promised!

Rules and regs of Tuol Sleng
I would comment but I think a good read speaks for itself

The "Noise tree"
Again, the sign sums it up