Blogs from Phnom Penh, South, Cambodia, Asia - page 186

4th entry... A 15-km tuk-tuk ride was our chosen transport out to the Killing Fields - hot and dusty but as we keep saying, the tuk-tuks have all the benefits of walking without all the effort! Very important for Cambodia to preserve and remember this very recent, very traumatic part of their history. The Khmer Rouge really lost the plot and lost any thread of a vision that they may once have had as they unleashed unremitting and barbaric torture and execution to so many thousands. The detainment and torture barracks are now a museum (the Genocide museum) but the buildings are fairly unchanged and speak for themselves. The Killing Fields (our English term, of course, and one particularly reinforced by the movie) are a truly odd experience as one tramples over remnants of human ... read more

Genocide. In a Utopian society, this word would be solely a collection of vowels and consenants forming a ficticious word. Unfortunately, our world is anything but Utopian and the people of Cambodia are far too aware of this sense of idealism. Americans had spent the early 70's (and $7 Billion) secretly bombing Cambodia for their involvement in the Viet Nam war. As if the thousands that were killed were not enough for an already impoverished country, from 1975-1979, a group called the Khmer Rouge, overthrew the government in Cambodia and reaked terror on all citizens within firing distance. The capital city of Phnom Penh became home to vicious murders and heinous atrocities. All citizens had to leave the city immediately, with only the clothes on their backs and the food that they could carry with ... read more

CAMBODIA: PART 2 OF 3 To get to the second destination of my Cambodian adventure I sleepily made my way to the Phnom Penh-bound buses early on the morning of the 25th. After excellent service at my hotel, I had complete confidence that when purchasing my bus ticket from them (and not the bus company directly) I would end up on a rather new air-conditioned bus. Boy was I wrong!! I arrived as requested, 15 minutes prior to departure, only to find that I was one of the last to board this 10-15 year old bus with plastic seat covers. I knew I was in for a ride from hell when they took my ticket and pointed to my seat - in the back left-hand corner of the bus!!! Realizing that fair was fair, and ... read more

Phnom Penh must rank as one of the least appealing capital cities in Asia. Arriving there after a 7 hour journey on a non-A/C bus, including a lunch stop inconveniently scheduled 30 minutes earlier during which we'd been constantly assailed by hawkers, I received the most tout hassle I've received since India. We had to force our way off the bus and away from the bus station before we could escape from hotel brochures being thrust in our faces. My mood was not improved by continual hassle by tuk tuk and moto drivers as we plodded around, and our first 3 choices of guesthouse all proved to be full. The city is also pedestrian-unfriendly, with pavements (when they exist) an obstacle course of parked vehicles, trees, street vendors, and mysterious holes, and traffic lights appearing to ... read more

Hey Guys We arrived early that evening and booked into the Okay Guest House which was nice enough, though our room was a bit of a dive. You had to walk through the kitchen and then through the staff quarters to get there and the red silk sheets, created a distinctly brothel like ambience. The hotel was located near the riverside, and so we took stroll down there in the evening and found ourselves a very nice Italian. That night, Dani woke up and was convinced that there was a little old Cambodian woman in the corner of our room, which, while not the scariest of subjects, it (she) still scared us a fair bit. On Sunday (11th) morning we headed out to the Killing Fields, about twenty minutes outside the city. The journey itself was ... read more