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Published: March 12th 2007
Toul Sleng Prision
The barbed wire still hangs from it's walls to stop people from commiting suicide As soon as we entered Cambodia and got off the bus to cross a river by ferry, we were struck by a change in the people. They looked to have less and a few tried to sell us a whole matter of things because we were foreign and therefore had money! We got to Phnom Penh and walked from the where the bus dropped off to the backpacker area near Boeng Kak Lake about 3kms away, well, it saved about a $1! It was really chilled out here, not like being in a city at all, though the lake was heavily polluted with litter. That night we bumped into a guy we had met in Saigon.
During the next day we went to Toul Sleng Museum, which had been the site of S-21 prison during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. The prison was originally a school. When Pol Pot came into power in the 70's he ordered all the residents of Phnom Penh to work in the countryside effectively leaving Phnom Penh a deserted city. S-21 was used as a prison where horrible tortures took place to the prisoners. Inside there were photos of the aftermath of the tortures,
people lying on a single bed in the middle of the room with pools of blood beneath the steel bed structure. The Khmer Rouge took photos of everything to keep record. Each 'prisoner's' photo was taken like a mug shot even though they had done nothing wrong. They were there on suspicion of plotting against the revolution. Quite often the tortured victims would give the names of as many people they could think of just to stop the torture being prolonged any more.
We hired a driver Hai, for the day and he was waiting for us as we came out of the museum. He then took us to the killing fields of Choeung Ek where 17,000 people were taken and killed. There is a memorial stupor in the middle containing more than 8000 skulls that were found in the surrounding mass graves. Afterwards we went to the Grand Palace but it was $5 to get in so decided to just walk down to the riverfront. It looked similar to that in Bangkok and wouldn’t have been as good, so....
The next day we went to the Russian Market, Psar Tuol Tom Pong and wandered around there in the
Would you believe it?
The scene of such horrible acts, Toul Sleng Prision, once a high school. stifling heat. That night we went to the Drunken Frog where they had live Music on.
The following day we caught the 7am bus to the beach resort of Sinoukville. We got off the bus 4 hours after we had started, still with our hangovers from the night before, and jumped onto the back of two motorbike taxis who took us to accommodation near the Occhcuteal Beach. We spent the rest of the day sleeping! That night we bumped into Ryan, Claire & Candy who we had met in Phnom Penh. The next day was cloudy again but we hung out with Claire and Ryan in the afternoon by the beach fighting off the many hawkers trying to sell massages, toe nail clipping services, fruit, sunglasses, bracelets and just about anything else you can think of! The most shocking though was the number of beggars who had missing limbs due to landline injuries. That night we went to the Eden bar by the beach where someone was fire dancing. The following day was sunny so I got up early and got some breakfast from the Dolphin Shack on the beach. They then let me use the sunlounger and umbrella
for free. After a few hours in the sun I went for a walk along the coast, climbing over the rocky cliffs and reached another beach, Sokha Beach. Most of this beach was private and owned by a large resort so I just took a quick dip in the sea before heading back along the coast. We caught the bus back to Phnom Penh where we spent the night in a nice $4 room and ran into Sam, a Cambodian who spoke with a London accent, who we had met the previous time we were there.
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