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Published: September 6th 2008
Arrived here just after lunch and unlike in Siem Reap had no trouble getting our tuk tuk to take us to a guest house of our choice. In the afternoon we went to the Royal Palace, very impressive bright and colourfull buildings. It is a shame that the immediate surrounding areas of the city are so poor and untidy, with rubbish in the street and many homeless people harrassing you. Despite this the city does have a certain charm about it, if only due to the absolutely crazy road system, with no traffic lights to speak of and it seems to be a competition most of the time to see how much stuff adn people can fit on one motorbike!! Despite the lack of traffic lights the system seems to work very well and flows along nicely, even though often they are on the wrong side of the road!!
In the morning we went to the Killing Fields at Choung Ek which is just outside Phnom Penh. This is the location where the Khmer Rouge murdered 20,000 Cambodians. Most of these were politicians and academics and their families, with up to 300 people being killed per day. There are 100
mass graves here and many of the bodies were still blindfolded when they were discovered. What is still not understood is why they were killed in such a brutal manner as the majority had been tortured and then beaten to death.
Next we went to S-21 which is one of the main prisons in Phnom Penh. It used to be a school, however the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot moved all the Cambodians out from the city to work in the countryside. They falsely told them that they had to go as the Americans were going to bomb the city. However, many of them were forced to walk up to 300km and did not make the journey, those who did had to work up to 15hours a day with little or no food. Prisoners in S-21 were suspected of being KGB or CIA and were tortured daily for up to 3 months until they died from torturing or starvation or were sent to killed. It wa so sad walking around here knowing what had gone on only 30 years before. Our guide herself had been forced to work on the land and saw her father and her brother get
shot. I think the Khmer Rouge regime may even have been worse than the Nazi, because at least they did not kill their own poeple where as Pol Pot was determined to wipe out all of the influential society in Cambodia which meant killing Cambodians and often killing members of the Khmer Rouge and all there families. Amazingly none of the Khmer Rouge have ever stood trial. Pol Pot died before being captured and of the two who were captured they still remain in prison where they will probably die without ever being sentneced. None of the local people are really sure of the reason for this delay and even more shockingly our guide told us that some of the Khmer Rouge had been granted amnasty and allowed to join the Cmabodian government where they remain today!! When the Vietnam army arrived at S-21 only 7 prisoners out of 3000 that passed through the prison had survived. Of those 3 of them are still alive today and live in the surrounding area. Many of the prison workers are also still alive today and live in Phnom Penh, they too have not been prosecuted, however, it is important to remember that
many of them were only teeenagers when they were forced to join the Khmer Rouge or be killed.
On a much happier note we spent the afternoon at the lighthouse orphanage. There are 75 children here and they were so happy to see us a recieve the small presents we had bought. We spent the rest of the day playing with them and being put to shame by their ability to speak up to 4 different languages!! A 12 year old girl spent half and hour teaching me Cambodian, her english was amzing as was her French!! I was also beaten at badminton by a 6 year old boy!!
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The next day we left Phnom Penh for Sihanoukville - which is where i am now!!
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Mumsy
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great blog again Lauren - sounds like you have really enjoyed Cambodia and the peops! I have sent link to Catriona - (Ralph still lame - 6 weeks box rest) You didnt notify us this time that you had posted these last two - so found it by chance when sending to Cat! look forward to next installment.xxx