Phnom Penh
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
49
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
We arrived safely in Phnom Penh and decided to check out the hotel the girls were staying in. It was great, nice and clean - only problem being that the cheap rooms were on the top floor up about seven flights of stairs, we are sure going to be fit after leaving this place (reminds us of India again!).
After settling in and spending the afternoon getting our bearings we decided to catch a play that we had heard about through one of the local restaurants. It was performed by local Cambodian women and told the stories of what they went through during the Khmer Rouge regime. It was directed by a Dutch woman and was really well done, with English subtitles. It was very moving and a great introduction to our stay in Phnom Penh.
The following morning we went to the Toul Sleng Museum. Prior to 1975 Toul Sleng was a high school. When the Khmer Rouge came into power it was converted into the S-21 prison and interrogation facility.
Killing Fields (1)
S-21 processed over 17,000 people, of which only 7 survived. We were both shocked and deeply moved by this place, so much so that we spent almost 4 hours here just taking it all in.After the museum we decided to check out the riverfront before heading to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We really didn't get much out of this place, it reminded us a lot of the Royal Palace in Thailand, so we felt like we had seen it all before. The most excitement we got here was when Glenn got busted for not buying a ticket for his camera and spent a fair bit of time arguing with the guard about why he didn't need one. After some time Christie had given up out of embarrassment and moved on to actually see something, while Glenn, persistent and stubborn as ever, continued his argument, only to meet up with Christie later with a big grin on his face - yes he got away with it, the guard got sick of arguing and let him go without paying (tinny bugger strikes again Mum K).
The following day, we decided to go out to Cheong Ek ("The Killing Fields"), where the prisoners from S-21 prison were taken to be executed and buried in mass graves. We took a tuk-tuk out there which was a bit of an experience in itself as the paved road ended and turned into a dusty bumpy ride out there. After the S-21 imagery, we were prepared for the worst here. But all that remains now is a huge memorial filled with about 7 stories of skulls filling it as a brutal reminder of what happened here. The rest was fields which some of the mass graves had been excavated many years ago (hence the skulls in the memorial), while many of the mass graves still remained untouched. Jumping back in the tuk-tuk, we headed back to Phnom Penh to spend the remaining afternoon trying to contemplate what the Khmer Rouge were trying to achieve. We never really worked it out.
