Cambodia, Phnom Penh to Battambang

The journey over from Saigon was fine, the border crossing interesting, lots of money changing hands and going in back pockets. Thankfully we managed to avoid being scammed, $3 for a 'health check' was one of the scams on offer, but we were wise to the problem thanks to a warning from Sham.



How the Cambodian's can smile so much given their recent history is amazing. They are such a lovely people, very friendly and helpful. We stayed 3 nights in Phnom Penh and although we didn't do all the typical sights due to the heat and odd opening times, we did see a lot of the city. The buildings and roads are in a poor condition, you can see a lack of investment, all being well though they are moving forward. We had some really nice local food down by the water front, I had a chicken curry and Kate had a dish with Pork and coconut served with crispy rice.

It's a bit more expensive than Vietnam, but we are still able to save money to bring us back on budget. Days at the moment seem to be spent wandering round in the morning and then finding a cafe or bar to relax in the afternoon with a beer and a book. We then have an all important cold shower before heading out for the evening.

Mosquitos are a pest here, the hostel in Phnom Penh didn't have air con so the window had to be left open to keep the air coming in. I thought it would be wise to use my mozzie net for the first time since I carried it around the world. The first night was fine, we had those Raid burning coils in the room and no one seemed to get bitten, I had a dry cough which I just put down to the start of a cold. I thought it would be wise to use my net again the next night, but I found that I was having trouble breathing. After being awake for several hours with no sleep and a constant cough we came to the sleepy conclusion that something was amiss. I'd said to Kate that I found the chemical taste in the room some what annoying, but Kate said she couldn't taste anything. At about 3 o'clock in the morning we decided that the net, or the treatment of the net, was causing me breathing problems. Sure enough, as soon as I removed it I began to recover almost straight away. It was a Sea to Summit treated net which wasn't cheap and I'd be interested if anyone else had similar problems. Anyway, all better now.

We took a Tuk Tuk ride to the killing fields on the Saturday. The site served as the disposal point for many of the 'inmates' from the Phnom Penh prison S21. The are over 8000 people buried there in a number of mass graves. If you are of a weak constitution then I would suggest you sit down to continue reading...

People were brought to the site in trucks and for the most part 'disposed of' during the course of the day, or the next if it was a busy period. They were killed by a number of different means, some had their heads smashed in, some had their heads hacked with a garden hoe, some had their throats cut, some were shot, some poisoned. There was a tree which was used for the killing of young children, they would be held by the arms or legs and swung at the tree until their tiny bodies were lifeless. All manner of horror took place at this and 100's of other sites around the country. It is estimated that over 2 million people were killed from 1975 to 1979 by the Khmer Rouge. Some people starved to death whilst the then government sold rice to China in exchange for weapons. As the 'official' government of Cambodia (or Kampuchea as it was renamed) The UN allowed the Khmer Rouge to have a seat in the UN whilst all this was going on, nothing was done at the time by our glorious leaders to stop this, and almost no one has been prosecuted for this crime. Its quite unbelievable. I sure that many people have said this before, but crimes like this should never be allowed to happen again.

The Cambodians seem keen for people to see the evidence and have built a tower which contains the visible remains of over 8000 people, skulls, clothes and bones. As you walk around the site, you can see clothing and bones sticking out the ground. There's a school next door and it was play time, at first it was odd to hear the sounds of children running and having fun at break, but then it became more of a comfort, a sign that life was moving on.

The next stop was the prison, S21, where a lot of the intended victims for the killing fields were tortured before dispatch. It was a former school and consisted of 3 blocks, each with 3 floors. The classrooms had been converted into either cells or torture rooms. It was a sobering sight. There were pictures on display of hundreds of the victims, all ages, all backgrounds. Many of the victims were educated and therefore at odds with the proletarian aims of the new order, although a lot the leaders of the regime were all educated to a high level, universities in France for the most part. Some of the victims were even former members of the regime, caught out in the struggles for power or just victims of paranoia.

I'll leave my interpretation of this unpleasant period in history, I'm sure there are many more who understand these events better. I don't think I could ever fully understand why a human could treat another human so cruelly, but I know no one could ever justify it to me.