After a long lie in we decided to go and see the sights of the city. We set off on our walking tour at 1pm in the scorching heat, you would have thought that by now we would know not to venture out in the hottest part of the day!! After 5 minutes we were dripping with sweat but by staying in the shade it was bearable - just!! We went to see Wat Phnom first, it is on a 27 m high hill in a park full of small monkeys. Apparently there has been a pagoda here since 1373. We stopped en-route to the Royal Palace to get a drink in a really nice (but expensive) expat place called The Green Vespa - if only I was hungry, their breakfasts include bacon, sausages, Heinz beans and black pudding all imported from England over here!

The RoyalPalace is a beautiful Khmer (not to be confused with the Khmer Rouge) building. In style it is very similar to the RoyalPalace in Bangkok, not surprising since the Khmer Empire once stretched the whole of Thailand, Laos and much of Vietnam. The gardens are very well kept and the Throne Room was very ornate. Inside the RoyalPalace compound is the Silver Pagoda, the floor of which is laid with 5 tons of silver, unfortunately inside no photos were allowed but it was unbelievable. The grandness and exorbitance continued with a Buddha made of emerald atop a gilded pedestal one of the main focal points in the room, a huge piece of emerald must have been used. Then the icing on the cake was a life size, solid gold Buddha weighing in at 90 kgs and adorned with no less than 2086 diamonds, the largest one a whopping 25 carats, talk about bling! It was also quite bittersweet as there were many small golden Buddha's inside cases, some damaged by the Khmer Rouge who banned Buddhism when they came to power - the mindless destruction of beautiful objects amazes me. We finished our walk by having a quick look at the IndependenceMonument built in 1958 which is now also a memorial to Cambodia's war dead.

Today we went to two of the most harrowing, horrifying and atrocious and upsetting places we have ever been to. First we went to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, a place 14km outside the city where the Khmer Rouge used to take people to be executed. There are 129 mass graves (43 have not been disinterred) and it is believed that up to 20,000 men, women and children were killed here between 1975 and 1978. We got a guide who fled Phnom Penh as the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, he told us that he lost his mother, father and brother here, his story rendered me speechless - it is impossible to try to understand the pain and suffering he must have been through. He also told us that there are many more (over 150) other killing field throughout Cambodia, the thought of this is chilling.

As you walk though the fields you can see pieces of torn clothing and parts of human bone coming through the ground, as well as all the mass graves both opened and the ones with all the dead still buried. On one tree the Khmer Rouge used to play loud sounds to disguise the screams that came when the people were killed. A stupa has now been built here, behind the glass panels there are over 8000 skulls showing that not only were people shot many were bludgeoned to death using axes, hoes, even clubs to save bullets, it was very upsetting. Needless to say we all left in stunned silence.

We then went to TuolSlengMuseum, the former Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison. The words Tuol Sleng roughly translate to a poisonous hill or a place on a mound to keep those who supply or bear guilt. S-21 to the Khmer Rouge meant Security Office 21. In 1962, S-21 was a high school, a place built for happy times, not the atrocities that were played out here between 1975 and 1978. As a building you can still imagine the school, but unfortunately those thought don't last for long.

Numerous torture devices were used here - in some of the biggest cells (used to torture foreigners, high ranking opposition officials etc.) they have left the beds and everything exactly how it was found, including the blood stained floors and walls. As you walk around the museum there are thousands of photographs of the prisoners that were brought here, many of them died here and buried in mass graves inside the grounds those who left alive were sent to the killing fields to be executed. Seeing the prisoners was tragic, all ages, all walks of life, things like this should never happen.

Some of the classrooms were divided into tiny cells measuring 0.8x2m, others were kept as mass cells. Conditions inside were terrible, rampant disease, no clean water, tiny amounts of food, many starved. The regulations were unbelievable too, so strict and if you didn't obey lashes or electric shock lashes were used as punishment. Only 7 people survived.

When we got back to the hostel we watched a film called Killing Fields - an intense but very good film made in the early 1980s about an American Journalist and his Cambodian helper during the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover. It is based on a true story, it was pretty heart wrenching at times and depicts the Khmer Rouge situation without going into the atrocities of S-21. Thankfully it had a happy ending too, after what we have seen today though thousands of others didn't.

We leave for Siem Reap tomorrow. Phnom Penh has definitely left its mark on us, from the beautiful architecture and sights of the first day to the horrific and disturbing second day.

Keep in touch

Love A&Sxxx