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Theres something exciting about arriving In a big asian city at night.The buzz,the traffic ,the smells,Back of a moto or tuk tuk ,No idea where your off too,its a new excitement.So after 5 hours on the bus to the capital I headed to Lakeside and arranged to meet Dave later in Shanghai Bar.The place I was staying was nice ,right of the Bakeo lake but I just couldnt be arsed speaking to anyone ,i was still gutted id left all my mates and thinking wether I should just go back.But I got changed and went to meet Dave and we had a few bevvies ina few girlie bars and I talked him into talking me the infamous heart of darkness club.Some police men Id met working in Phnom Phne told me not to bother going there was shootings all the time,small time gangsters,Big time gangsters with body guards....EXCELLENT!!.To be fair it was no problem,alot of pushing and shoving but it was alright and I met a few people Id met down at the beach.
The day after I decieded to get straight inot it and go see the Killing Fields and the S-21 Museum.Now i dont need to write down
about the genocide that happened here just 30 years ago and If you dont know you should read up because its amazing how unaware people are that 2 million people in a country of 7 million was slaughtered,tortured,died of disease ,malnutrition and disease at the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge and Pol POt between 1975 and 1979.The killing fields are outside of town and in the middle is a huge pagoda holding thousands of skulls found in the fields.They were used to dump the bodys that where tortured at the Museum.Truckloads a day.As you walk around theres just a series of whole but its not hard to ffeel totally shocked and disgusted reading the signs around the fields.In some places there are bones and clothing.Theres signs next to a tree saying it was used to beat children with and the like.It was worse than anything Hitler did yet most people are still not clued up to what happened here.If the fields werent moving enough I headed off with my driver (who id beat at pool in Sihanoukville and wasnt a happy guy at the time so i was on my toes!) to S-21.It had previously been a high school
until the Khmer rouge takeover and they ripped it up put high walls and barbed wire around the place to keep prisoners inside and used it as a detention centre and place to torture innocent and sometimes even there own soldiers later on that had 'failed'.It was one of teh most horrible things ive ever seen.You go from rooms with mug shogs of teh dead,before and afters,Women,children and ll some with a look of sheer terror on their face.To rooms with death beds where prisoners where strapped up,raped,electryfied..whatever they felt like really.
Theres just a bed in the room,sometimes the odd blood stain on the floor and a picture of a torcure victim on the wall.....it makes you want to be sick.Along with other torture 'machines' and instruments the whole experience was not pleasent.Tourists walk about not saying a word just looking at each other with sunken eyes.In one of the books a 9 year old girl from Austria had written "how can we be so cruel"............indeed.
The moto driver seemed to have Lost the irony when he asked if id like to go the shooting range and fire some guns......typically cambodian.Something Ill never forget
I spent a good 3/4
Khmer Rouge
Painted By a guy who did many Pictures on the atrocities he had seen during the KR era........ days in Phnom Penh mainly on the lakeside,watched the amazing Chelsea match with some lads from teh wirral then bumped into a cambodian girl Ive been chasing and thought was in Thailand at 5am on the way home when she came running out a bar to get me!! What a night!! Did a few walks round the city went visiting a few of my mates houses in the city and seeing my friends Kid but didnt do too much tourist stuff mainly to the fact id be in One of the bars on lakeside till 8am 3 out of the 4 night!! But iwsh id had longer.For all Id heard about it being dangerous and that I had no trouble.Allthough I think im addicted to that feeling of being in a bar at 6 am with loadsa dodgy moto drivers outside trying to sell you crack.....the wild west feel...slightly worrying but surely be worse if i was ON the crack!!
But time has come to leave Cambodia as I booked a boat from Phom Penh to Chau Doc in Vietnam for 6 am (offcourse im gonna stay up all night) Cambodia has been the best experience of my life to
the point where im contemplating coming home early and saving to set up a bar their.Im reading a book now on the drugs guns and girls of Phnom Penh and it says
"Cambodia is like your constantly tripping".............
I couldnt agree more and I am devastated to be coming down off it.Its totally crazy,Vietnam was going to be the big one for me now I feel totally not arsed almost like Im forced to leave.I was gutted leaving Siahnoukville now actually leaving Cambodia ,and with a 2nd of a 2 only visa thats 2 weeks out of date Im not looking forward to getting off OR facing Cambodian police on the border where im either gonna get extorted or go to jail,...I just hope they let me back in in June,I Love the place..........love the people...cant wait to fet back
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