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Published: April 7th 2008
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Arrival in Phnom Penh was a chaotic affair, with an army of tuk tuk drivers swarming against the bus, all vying loudly to get our attention.
We had booked three nights at 'The Wooly Rhino' guest house online before arriving and checked into our windowless but wonderfully cold room without trouble.
It wasn't until we went back down to the reception/bar that we realised it was St. Patricks day and stayed to have a drink amongst a raucous crowd of Irishmen.
Deciding our guest house was too busy in which to enjoy a meal we walked about 50 paces to 'The Green Vespa.' This turned out to be just as busy and just as we'd set our sights on the last table, it was promptly taken by two Americans, Nick and Erik, however they said we were welcome to join them. We took them up on their offer and were soon chatting over bacon and cabbage (the only thing left on the menu) and beer.
We had a few more beers and then some English people Nick and Erik had met in Sihanoukville turned up. Tamsyn, Will, and Mike. We had some more beers and had a great
time recounting tales of the places we had all seen to eachother. We then decided to move on to another Irish pub.
All seven of us piled into one tuk tuk and we soon on our way.
'Rory's' Irish bar was heaving when we got there, and we muscled our way to the bar to order a few pitchers of beer.
The next few hours are somewhat blurry, we know we had a great time though, and met two girls from Watford (Rehanah and Heshal) who were immediately assimilated into our ever growing group of drunken revellers.
After far too many drinks we eventually left 'Rory's' and shared a tuk tuk with Rehanah, Heshal, and an Australian (we think his name was Chris.)
We woke up in the pitch darkness of our room (despite it being almost midday!) with thick heads, and stumbled down to the bar for a much needed full English breakfast (the only known cure for a hangover) lamenting the fact that we hadn't taken our camera out with us last night, as it had been one of the most memorable evenings of the trip so far.
We didn't really do much for the rest of
the afternoon, but played pool in our guest house, and made a brief trip to a travel agents to arrange our Visa and transport for Vietnam.
We had arranged to meet with Rehanah, Heshal, and Tamsyn at five o'clock at our guest house for some more drinks and were pleased when they arrived just as hungover as we were. Tamsyn had brought along a guy called Jack and his girlfriend (we've tried desperately to remember her name) who she'd met at her guest house. We immediately clicked with both of them and after chatting for a while, found out that Jack was from Eastbourne! It was strange meeting someone we live so close to, in the middle of Cambodia.
We eventually moved on to the guest house that Tamsyn and Jack were staying at. The bar jutted out onto the waters of Boeng Kak lake on stilts, affording a magnificent view, and very chilled out atmosphere. Remained here for most of the evening, relaxing, and drinking beer, before making our way to a restaurant where we had some great food, and spent a good few hours chatting. After our stomachs had been filled we moved on to another bar
where we all played a few games of pool.
When we left this bar, everything had pretty much closed down, and we had a few scary moments of wandering a deserted street before finding a motorbike driver who took us to the safety of our guest house.
The next day we decided to visit the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, and S-21 Genocide museum. These were both important sites during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970's.
S-21 was the Khmer Rouge's secret prison used as an interrogation facility for the thousands of political prisoners of the regime, and the Killing Fields the place where they were executed en masse. Over 14,000 people were tortured and killed under Pol Pot (the parties leader.)
The visit was a grim prospect, however we both felt it was necessary to be able to fully understand such an important part of Cambodia's history.
We hired a tuk tuk for the day, and left shortly before midday for the Killing Fields. The journey was enjoyable and the surrounding countryside beautiful, which made it harder to believe that such atrocities were carried out here. The 'fields' themselves were made up of countless trenches, which
were used as mass graves for the countless men, women, and children murdered here.
In the center stood a giant, white monument to the victims, it's central column was filled with thousands of skulls which had been excavated at the site, many of which bore the cracks, and holes resulting from the general method of execution here (to save bullets, the Khmer Rouge soldiers would bludgeon the victims with the axel from an ox cart.)
The worst part for both of us was seeing the tree, against which the soldiers would smash babies and young children.
However the tranquility and peacefulness of the sight, combined with the fact that none of the administrative buildings had survived, somehow lessened the overall power of the visit. On reflection we agreed it would have made a bigger impression if we had visited the S-21 museum first.
The drive between Choeung Ek and S-21 was relatively short and we purchased tickets to enter the converted secondary school that became a meticulously operated secret prison, in the mid 1970's.
The compound was made up of three main buildings, designed originally to house 1500 political prisoners (though at times, there were many more.) The first
building was reserved for important prisoners - those of high military or politcal rank - while the other distinctly more primitive cells were used for the thousands of normal citizens who were held there.
Although the pictures of bloodied corpses in the first building were disturbing, by far the most chilling display, was the thousands of mugshots taken of the prisoners as they arrived at S-21. Staring at all of the faces of men, women, and children and knowing that every one of them had been killed, was incredibly upsetting.
We left the museum feeling melancholy and returned to our guest house for our last night in Phnom Penh.
We had a nice meal at 'The Green Vespa' and returned to our room, to try for an early night as our bus departed for Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) at nine am the next day.
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