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Published: November 20th 2009
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Phnom Penh aka Scooterville
I have never and I mean never seen so many scooters driven so recklessly in all my life. That includes the man on a scooter who dropped the basket of live fish in the middle of an intersection - you know who you are. DAY 19: Sorry for not posting anything for a while - too much moving around. DAY 19: We travelled to Phnom Penh today - it was an easy, cheap and short flight with Air Asia. We arrived at the airport and have to admit it was a lot better than we had expected - it was pleasant if small. Our hostel owner greeted us with a named sign and big smile. We hoped into our tuk-tuk and made our way through the bedlam that is Phnom Penh traffic. We saw a guy with a double, yes double mattress strapped to the back of his scooter driving happily down a main road in rush hour traffic - 10 points for balance?! We arrived at our guesthouse safe and sound and bedded down for the evening.
DAY 20: We woke up this morning knowing that today was going to be quite different from the rest of our trip so far. Today was about understanding the darker side of human nature. We arranged a tour with our guesthouse to the Killing Fields outside Phnom Penh and the infamous Tuol Sleng Museum. We left by tuk-tuk and it took around 45 minutes to get
Stupa at the Killing Fields
This is the memorial stupa at the Killing Fields just outside Phnom Penh. It houses the skulls of some of the victims of the Khmer Rouge. to the Killing Fields. We hired a guide for a donation and he took us around the site. He was excellent and really helped us gain a deep insight, not just into what happened, but also how Cambodian’s felt and still feel about it today. There is a tall white stupa erected at the entrance to the site, it houses the skulls found in the 129 mass graves. Our guide explained that much debate and deliberation happened in Cambodia regarding the remains. In the Buddhist religion bodies are cremated but this would have destroyed the evidence. They want the evidence to remain for the education of future generations - to ensure this never happens again. Eventually they decided to build a shire encasing the skulls of the victims as the head is considered scared in the Buddhist religion. Over 8,000 bodies were found at this extermination site with the total number of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime estimated at over 3 million - that was over a quarter of the entire population at the time. It was a harrowing experience particularly when we walked over to the Killing Tree - this is were the children were brought to be murdered.
The Tuol Sleng Museum (S-21) is the school turned prison where people who were deemed to be a ‘threat’ to the regime were bought and tortured. This included all professionals and their families such as doctors, lawyers, government officials, monks and those with ‘soft hands’. Pol Pot viewed these individuals as a threat to his regime and ideals. He viewed the children of these individuals as a future threat of revenge that had to be eliminated. The prison has been left almost exactly as it was found in 1979 - including the blood splattered ceilings in the torture chambers. For obvious reasons we didn’t take photos. The trauma this nation suffered is totally unimaginable and it was eye opening talking to the locals about their memories.
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