Depressing day
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2003
1
17
31
Trip End
Dec 01, 2003
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Friday, October 3, 2003
Spent a large part of today close to death on the back of a motorbike, weaving our way through the puddles on the roads on Phnom Penh, which are big enough to be classed as small lakes. Our drivers, Mark and Paul (I'm sure they're not their real names...) work at the guesthouse and took us round various places today for $8 which isn't too bad considering we probably covered about 50km in total. Funnily enough though, this didn't include a helmet, even though Mark, my driver, had one for himself!
We went to a shooting range first as Janine had heard a lot about it, but when we got there she found it was really expensive (about $2 per bullet) so just got the cheapest gun (COLT 45) but she was surprised at how loud it was and didn't like it! We both shot a couple of bullets but don't think we hit anything, but I'm sure they all had a good laugh at us!
We then went to Choeung Ek (Killing Fields) which is about 15km south west of Phnom Penh, and where all the prisoners were taken to mass graves during the Pol Pot regime. It was pretty eerie as there were just huge empty pits with "Mass Grave" written next to them, along with a tower which shelves upon shelves of skulls. There were also annoying kids there who pretend to be helpful and cute and let you take their picture, then ask you for money and won't leave you alone.
Next we went to the "Russian" market. Not sure what makes it Russian - I certainly didn't see anyone with big fluffy hats. Not a lot to buy there so found an Olde English cafe and got a Cheese Ploughmans which I'd been dying for for ages but felt too ill to eat. Bloody typical.
Last trip was to Tuol Sleng museum which used to be a school but where thousands of Cambodian's were held and tortured during the Pol Pot regime.
Looking round the torture rooms and cells made me almost physically sick, not to mention looking at the photos of all the people who had perished there. We were also shown a film which was the story of one girl who had been executed after being imprisoned at Tong Sleng which was really sad.
Got completely drenched on our way home because (as usual, without warning) it started raining. You get no warning with monsoon rain over here like you do with rain back home. No drizzle - it just starts heavily right away. Mark gave me his plastic poncho thing which was like a bin liner which was ok to cover my top, but didn't do much for my legs as we splashed through knee deep puddles! I have no idea how he could see either as the rain was so hard I couldn't keep my eyes open which was probably just as well as we were going pretty fast in order to get back quickly!
All in all a very eye-opening day, albeit a depressing one.
xxx
