Town View Hotel Phnom Penh

... including many doctors, lawyers, teachers and other highly educated people. We discussed the lasting effects the massacre had to this present day on Cambodia's development, and how there are other atrocities occurring around the world right now. It was hard to see the mass graves and the Memorial Stupor that contained 8000 skulls along with various clothing remains found. I think the girls found it interesting and quite scary too.
We then got back in our tuk-tuks and headed ...

... the horror of the Khmer Rouge system and the fact it was only 30 years ago is very frightening. The fields and the S21 prison just echo of death, almost 2 million people horrifically murdered in just over a few years so it was very tough to take it all in.

We spent much of our second day here taking in the terrible sights. We then spent the rest of the time getting used to ...

... each, arranged in a horseshoe shape. In the ground floor of the southern-most building were numerous classrooms, all of them more or less the same, small with barren, paintless walls, containing a metal framed bed, leg and hand shackles, and perhaps another item or two. On the walls were photos of some of the fourteen people who were found at the site in 1979, all of them sickeningly disfigured. On the steps on the way to the floor above, we passed obvious bloodstains. The top ...

... found out that DHL, Fedex, and UPS would all charge between $185 and $240 to ship our package! So…despite our excitement to mail the wonderful things we had bought back to the U.S., it turned out that instead—surprise!—we had gained a new travel companion! Mr. Box would be joining us for our journeys north through Cambodia, and into Laos, and maybe even beyond—wherever we can find cheap shipping (we’re hoping Thailand…).

... along the National Palace and museum. All blinking in gold, and across the street is poverty that cannot shine..?!! Well I guess thatīs everywhere in the world. The riverside is sort of the only " action " in Phnom Peng these days...It was different about 37 years ago, but that is all changed. You still see some " lost " Americans. Their hair is longer than the Mekong river. But okay.." as John Lennon said ; " War is over...if you want it ...

... week. That's not including Sopeak's husband and all the rest of the extended family that come to visit at this time. Pchum Ben means (Ancestor's Day, 15 days) is when Khmai people go back to their "homeland", spend time with their family, cook lots of nom onsom (long rice roll filled with pork fat and beans) and nom com (sweet sweet little gewy rice balls filled with sugar, coconut and peanuts, my fav), and make several trips to their family's local wat (pagoda). Now ...

... to share it with some students state-side in the future). Unfortunately all I can really tell yall about so far are my experiences so far with culture shock but they're pretty humorous (in retrospect of course).

Guess I could start off with my daily activities which I say on a daily basis in Khmai since that's a very common subject with my host family (I must say it at least 3 times a day). I get up every morning around 6 am which isn't for lack of ...

Took a cyclo ride around the capital of Cambodia, and even managed to do a little bit of riding.
For me this is not easy - as the cyclos are not meant for tall Geordie's but rather small Cambodians, but one i started and got use to banging the legs i was ok and it was good fun, rad a little race ...

... around $6.50, however it is well worth the experience. It provides a unique view into Cambodian architecture as well as providing a chance to see into the Cambodian royal families home. S21 can only be described as moving. Pictures on the cell walls help to gain perception of the prisoners welfare. The cells also contain the original beds metal beds that the Cambodian people were chained to. A tour guide is readily available for $2 per person ...

... of which the world had never seen. Declaring himself to be 'Brother Number One' and setting the date to 'Year Zero' and the name of the country to be 'Democratic Kampuchea', he immediately abolished currency, education, religion, culture and communications. All citizens were relegated to peasant status and forced to march en mass into the countryside as part of an agrarian Maoist co-operative. The young, the sick and the elderly were no exceptions and they too were ...