Alison: We went to Phnom Penh with low expectations. We had been told it is a very unattractive city with street kids eyeing you up to rob you at every turn. We found, however, that the place does have a few nice areas and the street kids only eye you up at every other turn!!
When we first arrived we had a few problems finding a place to stay. After negotiating a fare with one of the dreaded tuk tuk men, we asked to be taken to a hotel in our guide book. unfortunately, the place didn't seem to exist anymore so we were now at the mercy of the
driver. He took us to another road with a few places on but they were all full. It was now rapidly getting dark so we were a bit concerned.After wandering the streets for a while in the dark with an entourage of tuk tuk men eager to take our money, we were thinking we might have to stay in one of the very expensive hotels in the centre of town. Luckily though, we met a really nice driver.....perhaps the only one in Cambodia!! At first we were trying to get away from him but he came across as really genuine and helpful. It was dark but we couldn't see the $ signs rolling around his eyes like you normally do! We were planning to hire a tuk tuk the following day so he
offered to take us to a cheap hotel for free, if we would hire him. He was only charging $10 to take us to the places we wanted to go so we made a deal. (If anyone is visiting Phnom Penh and want a reliable tuk tuk driver the driver we used was Saleim – Mobile #
01271 6667)

Before coming to Cambodia, I knew little of its troubled history. I don't think I had even heard of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. In case anyone is in the same boat as I was with regards to Cambodian history, here is a quick summary of my understanding of what happened. The Khmer Rouge is a communist party that forced their way in to power in 1975. It was led by a very educated man called Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge wanted complete independence from the rest of the world and in order to achieve this they wanted a society in which everyone was peasants living and working in the countryside. The plan was to turn Cambodia in to one big work camp in order to make the country self sufficient and produce food/goods for export. People were forced to leave the city and they weren't allowed to have any interests or religion. Families were split up. Everyone had to wear the same clothes and have the same hairstyle. The education system was abolished. People that didn't comply or those suspected of
plotting against the government were interrogated, tortured and killed. Between 1975 and 1979 over a million people were brutally murdered, and hundreds of thousands more died from famine and disease.

In Phnom Penh there are 2 main places to learn about the Khmer Rouge atrocities. We decided to visit both. Our first destination was Choeung Ek which is more commonly known as The Killing Fields due to its setting and the events that took place there. Choeung Ek was the
execution ground for the torture victims of the Khmer Rouge extermination centre that is located in town (known as S21 and our next cheery destination of the day). The Killing Fields, as the name suggests, is a site set amongst orchards and rice fields. It has a very peaceful feel and it is hard to believe what went on there. There isn't an awful lot of actual things to see there but the things that are there are quite disturbing. The first thing you see on entering is a huge glass tower which is filled with the cracked skulls of men, women, and children exhumed from the 129 mass graves in the area. It is an unbelievable site. After this you can stroll around the grounds. There are many large craters located around the site and these are the remains of the mass graves. There is also a killing tree which was used to kill the children. Executioners would
hold them by the ankles and swing them against it. The way these people were killed was disgusting. The executioners didn't like to waste ammunition so people were often strangled or bludgeoned to death. Babies were torn apart limb from limb and pregnant women were
disembowelled. We were really shocked by what we saw. We couldn't believe how recently it had happened. Almost within our life time. Cambodia is still getting over the past. They have had to start from scratch to rebuild everything that the Khmer Rouge abolished. I'll let Nigel cheer you up now with the extermination camp!!!!!!

Nigel: After our visit around the killing fields we were offered to be taken to a shooting range. We felt that with what we had just seen, that going there would be inappropriate, so we declined. As
Alison mentioned our next port of call was the Tuol Svay Prey High School ( or Security Prison 21 or S21). Before the change in power took place, this building was a normal secondary high school but once Khmer Rouge took control and abolished all education it become the main prison/holding centre in Cambodia. S21 is set in a residential area and from the outside it doesn't look any different to the other buildings with in the vicinity. It's only when you enter the first building that the horrors become evident. There are 3 main buildings and all have 3 levels. The rooms that are located in the building on the left, show how the rooms were found and have pictures of the victims after they had been tortured to death. If that wasn't enough of an eye opening experience, than the building adjacent and parallel to the road, showed photographs of the actual victims. The pictures were used as evidence of the people who had entered S21 and they ranged from young children to old men and women. This building also had cells on the first and second floor. They were very small (around 4ft x 8ft) and were subdivided by thin brick/wooden walls. They even had to put barbed wire over the balcony sections, as the prisoners would throw them selves off. The third and final building was a serious of pictures taken by a young Swedish politician of what Cambodia was like during the Khmer Rouge reign. Below each of the pictures there is a comment by the photographer of what he saw and
believed in 1975 and what he believes today. The author does note that he knew that they were only shown the good parts of Cambodia and weren't allowed to talk to any people that they weren't introduced too, but even then it was clear that it was staged propaganda for there behalf. The comments he makes at present are not irrelevant to the pictures and are clear indication of him trying to justify why he and his group didn't notify their Government of what they saw. That
was enough for one day so we returned to the our hotel via the clean AC shopping centre.

When you walk around Phnom Penh you see both affluent parts and some poverty areas. Along the river front are some very expensive and top end hotels,restaurants, and shops but 500m down the road you see poor and dirty areas or our abode for the next 4 days. We went to the
National Museum after reading about it in our guide book and thought it sounded not too bad. We were horribly mistaken and after about 5 minutes of looking at old stone carvings we were soon bored out of our brains. I am sure that it is a good museum but us and museums do
not go together. We did go to the Central Market to look around, as the original building was constructed in the late 18th century and is meant to have impressive art – deco. Unfortunately
the building is closed for renovation but the stalls are being housed outside. We were lucky to manage to buy an authentic Rolex off one of the sellers for a small sum of 3 pounds. (Jealous Fay!!!!)

All in all the by the time we had reached the capital we were pleasantly surprised of Cambodia, especially after the events of the border crossing. We wouldn't say it is our favourite place we have visited but you have to appreciate that the despite the poverty and hardship that they had to face, there are some real positives to take from our trip there.