Phnom Penh

Our first full day in Phnom Penh, Louise's birthday, was celebrated in a rather sombre way, with a visit to the s-21 prison and the killing fields of Choeung Ek. S-21,, or Tuol Sleng prison, is the former Khmer Rouge prison, where those who supposedly posed any sort of threat to the Khmer rouge regime were held before they were taken to the killing fields, and therefore to their death. This place was established in a former school, basically because under polpots reeducation regime and reforming of the nation, they couldn't kill people quick enough, so they had to be detained here. Of the (the estimates vary in size, depending on the source) 10-16 thousand people sent here, only 7 survived.

Crossing the border

      Now this is gonna sound really heartless, an i apologise for that, but i was expecting to be alot more shocked by this place. I mean, I'd spoken to people who said they had to leave as they were in floods of tears. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely disgusting how they treated people here, and its a harrowing sickening reminder of what the Khmer rouge did all over the country, but i did expect it to be harder to swallow, so to speak. To throw in a horribly cheesy comparison (in a Matthew wickers voice) 'it wasn't a patch on Auschwitz!' The pictures of the condition some people were kept in were rather nasty though.

s-21

       Our birthday party then moved onto the killing fields, where the executions took place. These were alot smaller than i expected, and again less hard hitting than I'd been expecting(all right, I'm a heartless bastard). The most intriguing part of walking around here is to stare at the ground; as you walk around the paths you'll spot pieces of clothing, bone and even teeth sticking out of the ground on the way. These aren't for show, they are the remains of people who were killed here. There is also a stupa here containing the skulls of 8000 of the people who died here, those whose remains have been excavated from the140 odd mass graves (only about 80 have been excavated, they are leaving the others). Some of these skulls have nasty holes or fractures, where they have had their skulls smashed in; this was done in an attempt to be resourceful and save bullets. Nasty.

dee and taylor

        Next stop worth mentioning was the market; pretty much like any other South East Asian giant market, except that here me and Taylor treated ourselves to splitting a spider (See pics), much to Louise's disgust. I drew the short straw with the head, as apparently the tail end had much  more flavour. Bollocks! Went out in the evening for a few drinks.

       Next day, i found a coffee shop doing a $1.50 bottomless mug of coffee, iced or hot, and (excuse the pun) milked that offer well and truly, staying there for about three to four hours. After the others turned up, we went to check out the Royal Palace complex. Despite what the guidebooks say, i personally feel that this complex pales in comparison to that of the Thai royal palace, though it is spectacular and well worth seeing. The silver Pagoda isn't very impressive, from its name you imagine a grand silver pagoda, obviously. It is, however, just a building where the floor was made of silver tiles. I had to read the guide at the end to check if I'd seen it at all (i had).

a landmine!

       Next day we departed to Battambang, with a cooking course on the horizon.

pic in s-21

skull from the dead

those are peoples clothes and bones

box for pooing

dead peoples remains

those are alive

huge squid

mmmmn

incy wincy spider

yummy

lucky burger

the palace

palace again

thats you again cos

corrin again

and again