Killing fields and S21

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I am now in Cambodia, having left Vietnam Monday morning. I spent my last day in Saigon wandering around aimlessly and taking in a few sights. Unfortunately I haven't been feeling all that good so I didn't head out for a huge day.
In the morning we left for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We arrived around 2 in the afternoon and walked around the city for a while. After a late lunch we were exhausted and decided to relax in our room for a bit but after we all fell asleep, we decided to stay in for the rest of th enight and try to catch up on some of the sleep we've been missing on all those night buses. The next day Toke and I went to see the killing fields and Tuol Sleng (S21) prison. Kia didn't want to join us because she had had a hard time taking in the war museum in Vietnam and we expected this to be much worse. It was a rough morning, reading about the Khmer Rouge and the horror of the genocide here. In the killing field that we went to there were nearly 200 mass graves and roughly 20, 000 people had been killed there (most of them being beaten with various tools to save on bullets). Children and babies were killed by swinging them by their legs and banging their heads against a tree. In all of Cambodia there were hundreds of different killing fields and nearly 20, 000 mass graves across the country. At the site we visited they dug up 9000 bodies and preserved their bones and clothing in a large monument to remember the horror that occured in Cambodia. Despite so many graves been dug up, you could still see bits of clothing and bones working their way up from the ground all over the place. It was impossible in many parts of the pathways not to find yourself walking on these bones.
After this we visited the Tuol Sleng prison also known as S21 where thousands of people were held for questioning and torture if they were suspected of undermining the Khmer Rouge. The 20,000 people that were buried in the killing fields we saw were all brought there after being held at S21 and the type of torture they underwent was unbelievable. Needless to say, it was a rough day and I spent much of the morning wanting to find a quiet corner to cry about what happened. Its hard to believe that such an extreme group could take over the country to quickly and do what they did without anyone doing anything about it.
After that morning, we got on another bus and got to Siem Reap where we will see all the Angkor ruins. I'm excited to see everything and almost just as excited to spend more than 2 nights in the same room (somethign I have not done at all on this trip). So, we have 4 nights here before flying to Kuala Lampur for a day on my way to Phuket, Thailand. Less than 3 weeks to go.

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