There are NO McDonalds in Cambodia!!!

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Our final day in Siem Reap was exausting, so Emily and I decided we would have an early night, catch some Saturday night films, and get some extra shut eye before we'd have to wake up for our 8:30 am bus to Phnom Penh. This didn't work out as well as we had planned. The Canadian we had met up with at the temples wanted to tell us about his six months in Australia, anmd help us out with geting jobs once we arrived. Wewere so into the convo, that when we finally decided to go home, it was already 1:30 AM! On our way home, there was this little 6 year old girl begging for money. I stopped and told her I wouldn't give her money, but I would buy her some food if she was hungry. She kept saying she wanted "meal", so Emily and I said do you want fruit or chicken. She nodded with chicken. So, we set out on a journey, at 1:30 in the morning, on the streets of Cambodian, for some chicken. It turned out she wanted milk for her baby sister that was sleeping at home, but she wanted money so she could buy it herself. The guys we met on the motorcycles said the kids beg all the time, and just end up giving the money to their parents, so we decided being the little girl had run up ahead of us, and no longer in sight thatwe would just head back to our place to finish packing our bags for the next day.

So, we left Siem Reap to see the rest of Cambodia; Phnom Penh. We found a descent Guesthouse for $5 a night with cable T.V. and a fan. We did all the sighseeing things that tourist do, but the sight that really left us feeling sad was the S21 museum. This is where, I'm sure many of you know, almost two million educated Cambodians were ruthlessly murdered from 1973-79. This museum was the highschool turned prison where the Cambodian people were kept hostage and tortured by the Khmer Rouge. We went inside all the cells, where there were still undisturbed blood stains splattering the ceilings, the wire bed frames were still there, covered in dust, the chains where their feet were tied, and the buckets which were used as their toilets were there as well.

We decided it would be useful to get a tour guide seeing how it was only $5 altogether. This whole experience became even more extreme when our tour guide, roughly a 49 year old woman, started tearing up as she described how her parents and siblings were killed here, as well as how countless beatings resulted in deep scars on her ankles. We couldn't believe it. This normal looking woman had been victimized for virtually no reason at all. It was really hard to go on and see the other rooms of the former high school which had countless pictures showing real life photos of the victims; mothers separated from their babies, young children with guns, and prisoners being tortured. It was all very heart wrenching, especially to think that this all happened roughly thirty years ago.

We're now at the Cambodian/Thai border, Koh Kong, and we're leaving Cambodia tomorrow (what a relief!). We will spend about a week on the beaches, and then head back up to Bangkok to get ready for our flight to Australia on April 27th! Pretty exciting!

Well, hope you all enjoy my entries, and don't be shy to leave me a freakin message every once in a while!

Marie 😊

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Comments

[anonymous]

I was feeling sad and depressed as well when visiting S21. But just one correction: About 30.000 People were killed in S21. About 2 Million were killed by the Khmer Rouge throughout the whole country but not all in S21.