Blue River Hotel Phnom Penh

... good food. The best cafe is Anjali where the food is superb and the beer is cheap :-)<br><br>We visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek which was really upsetting. Thousands of people were executed here and I found it was worse than visiting Auschwitz. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were truely disgusting and dispicable people. There are so many mass graves and there is a enormous stupa of skulls. It is glass tower which contains over 8000 skulls of victims and their ...

... sombering experience I was off to the S-21 prison where political and even non political prisoners were held and tortured before their almost inevitable death. What makes this place very strange is that the prison was a school prior to it becoming a prison, so by looking at the grounds you could imagine children playing here, going to class, etc...Another experience that won't be forgotten.<br> Tonight we are off to ...

... riverside is not that long and some smart people made a clever move back then. A smart German owns a great bar along the Mekong river. So we sat down with a beer, some nuts and wi-fi. But yes it was back again......." The Gods of Ankor Wat are following us..!!! " Unbelievable ! Huge water buckets and no stopping at all.!! What´s up?? We managed to stay dry, even as we sat almost inside the bar.!! Crazy, but why do they call it the Mon-soon period ...

... t see at home but it tastes good!!!<br> <br><br>After lunch the Childrens Church workers from New Life Church took us to a slum that they work in every week. It was pouring rain &amp; we couldn't transport the guitar in case it got wrecked so the band didn't do any songs. This slum is to be seen to be believed &amp; is just filthy, with so much rubbish, no water or electricity ...

... banks. Lovely little houses on stilts, a few animals and veges out back and a fishing boat/raft to come and go. It looks so quaint and peaceful and all the kids are splashing about in the water waving as boats go past and not a playstation in sight. I really cant emphasize how friendly the Cambodian people are. The country definately deserves its nickname as the land of smiles. Our hair colour is definately playing a part in the staring and smiles we get tho ...

... in their thirties/ forties/ fifties (although there don't seem to be many) and wonder what scars they have to hide. <br><br>The deranged communist utopia Pol Pot and his associates intended on gaining was to not only kill and gruesomely torture intellectuals and all educated people, but they brainwashed children into their regime to carry out first hand their atrocities. <br><br>The prison where thousands of people perished is now a museum, but was once a set of ...

... and torture the people of Cambodia. It was hard to look at, it still had the look of a school house about it but with barbed-wire fencing, chains and even blood splatter on the walls.<br><br> Then we went to the Killing Fields, which was also hard to look at. This is where they took all the prisoners from S-21 to execute them. They excavated 86 out of 129 mass graves on this siite, about 8 ...

... a moto; women nursing sleeping babies while riding sidesaddle as pillion passengers; guy riding the moto while cradling a 6 month-old in one arm.<br><br>The call of "Moto" from a block away every time you poke your head out the door.<br><br>Street badminton<br><br>Funeral and wedding pavilions set up in the street for days at a time &#8211; both look the same and the loudspeakers blast out their sorrow or happiness from about 5.30am until 10pm or later

... prisoners, chained to their beds and with their throats cut. Prisoners with any importance were housed in solitary confinement here and were at least given the luxury of a bed and medical treatment after interrogations.<br><br> A memorial to these victims has been erected outside the building, inside each room, the beds are preserved as they were found, along with the original black and white photograph of their bodies. Not a sight for the ...

... were no trains around. We waited and waited. A teenager with gold teeth told us the train would arrive at 07:00 - but it didn't.<br><br>By around a quarter to nine a middle aged man, addressing me in French, told me to wander up the track and look behind a dilapidated cattle transporter where I would find 'Une voiture verte'. I did so and, sure enough, there was a passenger carriage which was already almost filled with patiently waiting Khmers. We boarded it and, within half an hour ...