Phnom Penh

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We arrive in Phnom Phen and are mobbed by tuk tuk and motorbike taxi drivers. It's low season so they're quiet and after whatever business they can get. Get a tuk tuk to look at a few accommodation options and arrange for him to come back the next day to take us to S-21 and the Killing Fields!

Not exactly a fun filled day but so interesting, emotional, like with Vietnam it's so important to go to these places and learn about the history to help understand a country, their people and politics.

S-21 was a school, then became a prison and is now a museum. As you walk round the building you can picture it as both, two very different purposes for the same set of buildings!

We started by watching a film that which meant you really knew what you were looking at as you walked round. The classrooms were turned into various types of prison cells, some with tiny cells that had a bucket in the corner and barely enough space to lie down.

Others that were for a number of prisoners that lay down head to toe shackled together and weren't allowed to speak or make any noise. Then there were others that were used as torture chambers! The buildings haven't really been touched since the war ended. I thin though the worst thing for me were the rooms that displayed images of the prisoners - their 'mug shots' I guess. Young (some barely looked like they were in their teens), old, male, female, often very skinny and clearly unwell.

From there we headed to the killing fields, where a lot of the prisoners were taken, killed and dumped in mass graves. At the centre of the area is a monument built in remembrance of those who died and were buried there which also houses the skeletons and clothes of the victims.

Seeing the number of skulls preserved behind the glass really brings the numbers you are told and read about home. As we walk round the fields and see the mass graves, which are basically pits, we see lots of pieces of cloth and bone still there in the dirt from victims.

As well as these hugely poignant and important historical sights Phnom Phen does have lots else going for it - markets (especially the HUGE Russian market) and shopping malls (Cambodia style, small, the shops are more like market stalls) and great places to eat, drink and have fun.

We headed to the Foreign Correspondents bar one evening and are highly entertained by a group of very drunk Americans having a great time dancing to the live band who play everything from The Kings of Leon to the Rolling Stones (some actually pretty well, some fabulously awful). Eventually a couple of the group have to be carried down the stairs and taken home, they have had one major session! We settle for treating ourselves to a couple of glasses of very very expensive (compared to the local beer) but absolutely delicious red wine. Mmmmmmmmmm

We were warned by the people running our guesthouse when leaving in the evening to be very careful of my bag (a tiny over the shoulder one with just enough money for the night, tissues and wipes in it, they were warning the wrong people!) but we felt safe the whole time and had read that a lot of guest houses say this so you stay and eat with them!

Glad we did venture out for a wander nearby as stumbled across an amazing little restaurant, full of locals, mostly men that seemed to have come straight from work and stayed for a good few hours, that served amazing Cambodian BBQ'd food.

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Photos

Bus rules
Can we do either or though?

Cambodian Petrol Station
Quite an upmarket one what with the sun shade and glass bottles - filled up in plenty out of plastic ones!

The only way to travel
tuk tuk of course!