The "Hill of Penh" - Phnom Penh

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The bus from Sen Monorum to Phnom Penh was a bit better than the one to Sen Monorum. Not more comfortable or anything, it just went quicker, and so was wilder and bumpier.

Phnom Penh is a great city, as far as cities go. Big, noisy, dusty...all the things we dont like! But we still had five days there, and managed to pack all but the last one (had to pack our gear sometime!) Everywhere we stayed, either in a hostel or with Couch Surfing friends, we were woken up early by the noise of traffic or building work. The sun comes up around 6am, and work starts not long after. Due to the unreliability of electricity (and the cost), you have to get as much done in daylight hours as possible.

We saw most of the main sights, including:

The National Museum - not very big but full of interesting artifacts from various temples around Cambodia. Not much in the way of explanations as to what each item is though, and also not much in the way of other Cambodian history. Sure, they want to forget the whole Khmer Rouge episode, but surely there must be some surviving historical pieces, more textiles maybe, handicrafts, household things... We also felt that some of the artifacts in the museum needed to be in an Angkor museum in Siem Reap.

The Royal Palace - expensive to get in, but plenty to see in the way of wealth and luxury. We couldnt get close to the actual palace as the King and Queen were there, but we could look around the throne room, the silver pagoda and numerous other buildings with loads of gold and/or silver decorations (plate/leaf/solid???).

The Tuol Sleng S21 Genocide Museum - a depressing place showing what man is capable of doing to his fellow man, the darkest side of humanity. The place looks so ordinary, like the high school it was, except for maybe the rolls of barbed wire on the wall round the outside. At least it does until you get right inside.

There are four blocks / buildings. One was used as an interrogation block, with iron beds and shackles in each room. Several of the rooms also have big photos on the walls taken by the Vietnamese army (they liberated the city) showing the 14 prisoners the Khmer Rouge tortured to death - gruesome - as the Vietnamese approached. The corpses were left in the interrogation rooms, and they are now buried in the school yard.

Another block is full of photos, black and white, of the victims. All the men, women and children (mainly Cambodia but also a few foreigners) were photographed on entering the prison, and all but seven were killed either there or at the nearly Killing Fields. Those that died at Tuol Sleng were also photographed dead, and these pictures (starved, tortured, destroyed bodies) are also on display. Unless you've been there, you dont know what its like to walk through room after room looking at photos of people you know were killed in the rooms around you. The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records, with photos, notes and the signed "confessions" (usually only agreed to to stop the torture) of the prisoners.

A third block still has the brick or timber partitioned cells, 0.8m x 2.0m, that were used to house the prisoners. And the last block houses several photo exhibitions, featuring a mix of the jailers and the jailed.

It would be nice to think that people learn from places like this, and the concentration camps in Europe, but they dont. Atrocities like this are still going on today, maybe not on this scale, but people are still being tortured and killed for who they are or what they believe in. The Khmer Rouge killed anywhere up to 2-3 million of their own countrymen.

Choeung Ek - the Killing Fields - about 11km from Tuol Sleng, this now peaceful place was where the men, women and children prisoned in Tuol Sleng were taken to be killed. To save on bullets, they were usually bludgeoned to death, the smaller children and babies swung against a tree. About 17,000 people were detained at Tuol Sleng and then killed here. 8985 bodies have been unearthed; 43 of the known 129 mass graves have been left untouched. None of the buildings from 1975-1978 are left, but their sites are marked. There is a big stupa at the entrance of this extermination camp in remembrance of those who died, and it contains more than 8000 skulls behind large glass panels. Some of the opened graves are signposted with how many bodies they contained, whether male, female, adult or child, and the type of injuries where possible (bludgeoned, shot..)

Wat Phnom - Legend has it that the first pagoda built on this hill in 1373 housed four statues of Buddha washed up here by the Mekong and found by a woman named Penh. The town that grew up around the hill came to be known as Phnom Penh - Hill of Penh. Now, although there is still a pagoda / temple, there are also many beggars, street kids, mine victims, an elephant and lots of monkeys.

We also had a wander around Psar Thmei, a large yellow, domed, Art Deco market packed with everything you never thought you needed, the "Russian" Market, Psar Tuol Tom Pong, a cheaper market for souvenirs and other general stuff, past some neat buildings like National Library, the US Embassy built in the shadow of the only hill in the city (real security conscious!!), along the waterfront (the rivers Tonle Sap, Mekong and Tonle Bassac).

We ate in a mixture of places, our usual market or street stall fare, backpacker cafes along the waterfront, a posh but still not expensive Korean restaurant, and a posh (again still not expensive!) Khmer restaurant on the waterfront. The two posher places we went to with our CS hosts.

Talking of CS hosts, we stayed with some great people. Kristin, an American teaching at an international school, and Lucile, Yves and Sarah, a French family working for NGO's. They both either showed us or told us about a side of Phnom Penh we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise, as well as shared some of their lives with us. Fantastic people.

And one last thing, we also left a couple of pints of our blood at a childrens hospital in the city. There were signs up in the hostel asking for donations, so along we went. Most people that give blood do it in Siem Reap as the advertising is much bigger there, but we donated in PP instead. In return for our blood, we were given a t-shirt (more advertising!) and a bag of food (rice, sugar, condensed milk, noodles, water) each. The t-shirts we kept (they were our only clean ones at the time!) but the food we gave out to two of the many needy people we found while walking the city. Hopefully someone will benefit from it, and being O Neg that shouldnt be a problem.

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Photos

Some of the many "before" photos
These were taken on entry to Tuol Sleng. We couldnt face the idea of taking photos of the "after" pictures, those of the tortured bodies. Too sad.

Some of the unearthed mass graves at Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields
Isnt this such a peaceful place now? Its impossible to imagine the terror people would have felt arriving here between 1975 and 1978.

How many people are on this moped?
Four would be the obvious answer, but look closer and there is another childs leg hanging out under the second man, by the ladys hand.

Roadside petrol stall
Black market petrol, not as clean as from a petrol station, but cheaper.

Comments

[Gini]

Thanks : )
Wow, thanks very much for your comment, thats really kind. I only thought it was my family and some bored friends reading this on their lunch hour in the office... I hope your travelling is going well, it looks like you've been all over the place! I just read your own blog on S21 and it took me right back to those classrooms - its some place, for all the wrong reasons. Hope your legs have taken you onwards to somewhere more positive and up beat. Happy travels (and blogging) Steve : )

[larysa]

just passing through...
I wish I can spend a week in Cambodia as well.. but my mother and I have only 8 days. And in those 8 days, we're hoping to go around Saigon, Cambodia and Bangkok... our mantra... IT CAN BE DONE. Thanks for sharing the pictures and notes of experience.. :-)