Hippy den in Phnom Penh

Arrived in Cambodia's capital yesterday. A busy city of about 1.5 million. Got off the bus and headed to the city's hippy hang out on the outskirts beside the lake. It was a bit grubby but there was a good vibe about it. We threw our bags into our $2 a night gaff and got drunk with an Aussie couple we had just met. Later that night we had a weird encounter with a 60 something, bearded hippy from Canada, who casually informed us that he had lunch with Jesus in Bangkok!! What a nutcase. Made it to bed for about 10am. We hired a tuk-tuk for the day and went to the Killing Fields, just outside the city. 9000 bodies of men, women and children have been exhumed here in recent years. They were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge Army during their reign between 1975-1979. Led by the infamous Pol Pot the Communist party murdered over 2 million of their fellow Cambodians in an attempt to rid the country of the middle and upper class. It was a morbid place with a glass tower in the middle in which the bashed skulls of the dead were kept.

And you wonder why there's bird flu?Theyr alive!

Next stop was the shooting range. Open to tourists, the Cambodians have decided to turn their arms store into a firing range where for $10 you can unload a clip or fire an AK47 at a flock of feeding unsuspecting chickens. We casually refused and jumped back into our tuk-tuk and went to the old regime prison S-21. Another grim place, which illustrated in more detail the tortuous ways of the Khmer Rouge. It was a pretty depressing place and we were glad to leave. There were not too many other things to see in Phnom Penh so we got dropped off back at "hippyville" where we hooked up with two lads from Kilkenny and got plastered. Head to the south coast today, will write soon.

S21 Prison

The Killing Fields