Phom Penh - Cambodia
Trip Start
Oct 18, 2007
1
4
25
Trip End
Jun 2007
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Sunday, October 28, 2007
It was really sad to think that all of these people were tortured and murdered , and chilling to think that it happened from 1976 when I was alive. People joined the Khmer Rouge as they were living in poverty and they thought that they would have a better life. They didn't realize that they would be forced to torture and kill their own people. It was all pretty much kept undercover. People (mainly intellectuals) were interrogated as if the they had done something wrong. It makes you wonder what is going on today in Burma/Myanmar. We don't hear about it on the news anymore. What happened to those monks that were shipped away? The UN still haven't decided on a punishment for the Khmer Rouge leaders. They are now old and it is probably not in anyones interest now to do so. How could these people go unpunished?
Highlight of the day - we spoke to a Buddist monk! He came over to us and asked to speak to us to improve his English. We believed that monks weren't allowed possessions and lived off offerings from other people, but I asked this monk if he had a mobile phone and he did ! He said that they are not told that they can't have things. Every Buddist man has to become a monk for a period of time. Its usually after school, and they get free education. I also thought that they only wore the orange robe, but this monk had clothes underneath his robe.
We're headed off to Vietnam tomorrow. We're gonna get the bus straight through to Ho Chi Min. Apparently you don't need to get off the bus at the border (phew). I found what I think is bed bugs in our bed (they look like rice grains) so I'll be glad to get a different hotel. I'm also bitten badly by mosquito's and v sunburned (its v hot), so I hope Ho Chi Min is a bit more touristy. Who knows - maybe we'll get toilet roll !! (In Thailand and Cambodia you just get a hose).
