Phnom Penh

So... i am currently in Penang, Malaysia, but i realise i haven't updated my blog in a few weeks so am having to backtrack to Cambodia!

The border crossing from Vietnam to Cambodia was SO easy compared to the Laos/Vietnam one! Hardly any waiting around! We crossed at the Bavet/Moc Bai border and the whole trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh took about 6-7 hours!

We got off the bus and as usual were bombarded by tuk tuk men wanting to take us to their friends guesthouse! We ended up getting one to the 'backpacker area' of Boeng Kak... more commonly called 'Lakeside'. We looked at a couple of disgusting guesthouses... including one which was recommended in the Lonely Planet... they must have slipped up there!!! But we decided to settle for No.11 Happy Guesthouse on the lake. Beautiful rooms from the huge bar/restaurant/communal area out the back overlooking the lake where we watched a couple of spectacular sunsets! The rooms were quite grimey and old with an absolutely FREEZING cold shower but at least we had our own toilet!!

The mosquitoes immediately attacked me as soon as we arrived in Cambodia and they did not leave me alone until i left!!! HAHAH!!! I tried every single repellant out there but nothing could conceal my tastiness!!!

As soon as we arrived here i also noticed a significant rise in the amount of people begging on the streets. The children all seem to be encouranged by their parents to do it which is awful to watch. Also i noticed that they were not only begging for money... but just for food or anything else we could give them. This really got to me for some reason. We gave them our apple buns things from the bus and they were SO happy..!! I know you shouldn't encourage them to do it but it's hard to resist!!! As soon as they had gone though, a new group turned up on the other side of the bus holding their hands out and begging again... obviously caught news of our arrival!!! Horrible though. There was a young girl, no more than 10 years old, holding a tiny naked baby walking up to cars and begging. There were women selling fly ridden prawns, sticky rice, fruit, magazines and chickens all to the cars waiting in traffic. EWW.

Anyway.. so we got to our guesthouse and booked with a tuk tuk man to take us to the Killing Fields and S-21 prison the next day.

We went to the Killing Fields first which are about 14 km wouthwest of Phnom Penh. It is where most of the 17,000 detainees held at the S-21 prison were executed under Pol Pot's regime. The S-21 prison was a school before it was taken over by Pol Pot and his men (along with many other schools) and transformed into a prison where innocent people were kept and tortured before being taken to the killing fields to be executed. At one point there were truck loads containing 300 people per day being taken here. If they couldn't get through all the people in one day they would put them into mass graves and bury them alive. The first thing you see when you enter is the enormous stupa of skulls - a massive glass tower with 8000 skulls, all catagorised into gender and age. At the bottom is a messy heap of old clothes that these victims had been wearing. When you walk around the fields you can see massive trenches, loads of them, which were the mass graves. You can still see human bones poking out just under the soil and old clothes of the victimes can still be seen everywhere. There are trees where the Khmer Rouge soldiers would beat people - including women and children - to death.

I did become fascinated with this in a wierd way. I cant believe this all happened only 30 years ago. Their actions were so barbaric and brutal. I bought a book when i was in Sihanoukville in order to learn more about it called 'Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields' which was complied by Dith Pran and is a collection of the heartbreaking experiences that the survivors have encountered. An amazing book but v difficult to read and understand emotionally.

The Khmer Rouge made up the Cambodian Communist party with became powerful during the Vietnam war. After 5 years of civil war, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, overthrew Lon Nol's Khmer Republic (government) on April 17th 1975. Pol Pot and his party reigned until they were overthrown by the Vietnamese army on Jan 7th 1979. During this time, they were responsible for the deaths of approximately 2 million Cambodians. They were brutally murdered, starved and killed by disease. The Khmer Rouge ordered everyone in the cities to leave for the countryside and forced all Cambodians to work and live in labour camps.

They were made to work 14-18 hours a day and fed them only one bowl of watery rice per day. They split up families and put people into groups according to their age to work. The Khmer Rouge put everyone into one of 2 categories; The New People - who were the people who lived in the cities who were controlled by Lon Nol and his army and were despised by the Khmer Rouge as they were thought to be 'corrupted' by America, and The Old People - who were easier for the Khmer Rouge to influence and so recieved slightly better treatment - these were the people who lived in the countryside.

They would take people away for 'reeducation' - if they were thought to be well educated or highly skilled or anybody who worked for the government under Lon Nol, and also, anybody who spoke against the Khmer Rouge regime. People were marched from their homes in straight lines to far away villages and rural areas - nobody knew where they were going or how long for. They were told not to bring any posessins. As they were marched off, if anybody were to complain they would be shot or clubed over the head and left to die. These soldiers were only kids! This is what makes is even more disgusting. They were brainwashed and turned against their family. Some even killed their parents & loved ones as they were told that their family didn't love them and that Angka did. The Khmer Rouger were promising that the new government would bring prosperity for Cambodia. THey planned to turn it into a massive rice growing country to bring wealth. They claimed that nobody would be rich or poor and that everyone would be equal and they made people sing and pray to Angka. They basically brainwashed them into following this disgusting regime. Families were separated and children were taken and brainwashed & told their parents did not really want them & that they were under Angka's care & they only love Angka. Some kids were made to kill their loved ones and if they were to show any grief they would be severely beaten. This is how they developed this army of sickening people.

The Khmer Rouge said that they were creating a utopian nation where everyone would be equal. They wanted to restart the nation by resettling everyone and changing everything back to zero. Instead, the entire nation was dying ofstarvation, disease and brutal murders. Anybody with any kind of education was killed. Doctors were made to train young khmer rouge soldiers for as little as a couple of weeks and then killed. Western medicine was abolished as well as any enjoyment out of life. No tv, no school, no games, no family life. The Khmer Rouge took everything despite promising an equal nation. They could marry whoever they wanted and had food, gold, jewellery, cars, whatever they wanted.

The S-21 prison was so heartbreaking that i cant even talk about it here. Me and Mike hardly spoke whilst we walked around the eerily quiet cells where people had been tortured to death and kept in unbelievable living conditions. There are pictures here of the many many victims of this disgusting regime. I have to leave it there i'm afraid as this is just SO depressing...

ESPECIALLY JUST AFTER XMAS!!!

Sorry for such a depressing blog entry... just wanted to share my experiences!!!

Hope you have all had a BRILLIANT festive and fun xmas... mine has been very... different..!! But more about that later!!!

So... from Phnom Penh we made our way south to Sihanoukville. This will be a MUCH happier blog i promise!! But you may be waiting a few days for it!

Love you and miss you all LOADS!!

Merry Christmas and a very very happy new year to you all!

Ems

xxxx