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Published: December 28th 2009
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Okay so have managed to add a few pictures the last 3 blogs if you want to click on top left "previous entry"you can see the piccies! But no piccies for this one Im afraid as all the memory cards keep messing up as loads of the computers we use end up having viruses and all sorts on them, so frustrating!!
So anyway, back to the blog, so boxing day for us was spent with an early 5 hour bus journey from Sihanoukville to the Capital City of Phnom Penh. Journey was fine, we got dropped off not too far from the backpacker area in Phnom Penh which overlooks a lake, sounds great except the lake is awful and dissapearing and covered in rubbish, still loads of cheap guesthouses, although we did spend about 1 hour looking around them all as some of the rooms were a bit gross, we eventually found one for our usual price of $10 with air con and a tv! 😊 By the time we had done all this had something to eat it was in the evening, and the guesthouse were showing a film called The Killing Fields, based on a true
story about an American Journalist was over here when the Khmer Rouge killed millions of people in Cambodia in a mass genocide in the late 70's. Really good film and good for us to get some background knowledge as we were planning on a visit to the killing fields museums.
Sunday 27th after a relaxing evening and catching up on some sleep we headed out into the city for our own little walking tour of all the sights. So good to be back out and doing something after pretty much lazing around on beaches for the past couple of weeks, feels like we are travelling again now and not just on holiday, like a new different trip. Really like Phnom Penh, expected it to be crazy and dirty and busy like Vietnams cities, which it is in a way, especially the dirty part (still loads of rubbish just thrown everywhere all over the streets) but it looks a bit nicer, mainly because of all the french buildings from when the french were here, loads of nice tall beautiful buildings like villas, loads of nice cafes restaurants, shops and markets, so yeah a nice afternoon getting a few bits n
bobs. Sunday evening we decided to have some dinner round near the lake area by our guesthouse as it was sooo cheap. Its a nice surprise that the city is much cheaper than the places in Kampot & Sihanoukville. We had an Indian set meal, 2 types of chicken curry, some other weird sauce vegetable thing, rice and naan for $2.50, other restaurants had loads of different offers, but you can pretty much eat for around $1.50-$3 and the drinks are generally cheaper too, in sihanoukville fresh juices were $1-$2 whereas here they are $0.50-$1 😊 So yeah had a nice dinner wondered around the area a little, its really cool, right near the lake and its basically made up of a load of tiny little alleys all wandering in different directions, loads of guesthouses which all have restaurants cafes and bars, some right by the lake, right funky little place.
Today we hired a driver to take us out to some sights to do with the Khmer Rouge and their mass genocide. Was a pretty intense day, seen the killing fields where 1000's of people were taken to basically just get killed and thrown into mass graves. Loads
of the mass graves have been excavated and bodies have been exhumed and they have now built a huge memorial stupa where they house all the bones on display for everyone to see, ahhh it was awful some of it, there were some with explanations pointing out bits on the skull showing how they had been killed etc. There were the sites of the mass graves which you could see (just loads and loads of holes all over the ground) and a couple of exhibitions/videos with some info. So just to make our day even more cheerier we went to the S-21 security centre on the way home which was even more shocking. The worse thing about this place is that it used to be a school until 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took over and change it into a prison, but it still looks exactly like a school making it extremely creepy. It was basically where they kept prisoners, torturing them and getting confessions out of them before they were transported to the killings fields to be killed. Pretty intense day as I said, but we learnt so much that before we did not have any idea about. Just
for some more info as you might have seen it on the news as we saw it on the bbc website, a few of the Khmer Rouge leaders are only just being put on trial and being prosecuted for their crimes, 30 years after it all happened, crazy stuff.
Anyway our driver brought us back, we relaxed for a bit to give our heads a break on some restaurant by the lake before we head out to dinner later. Tomorrow our time in Phnom Penh is up and we will be heading to the other major city further northwest, Siem Reap for about a week where Angkor Wat is and where we will spend new years. Heard from Carine and Sandra (french girls) who are gonna be there too, so should meet up with them again.
Will write again after new year, so happy new year to you all!!!!
Lots of Love
Layla & Ste xxxx
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