Today was a sad morning. We went to the prisons and the killing fields from the Cambodian genocide.
First a bit of history. The Genocide was from 1975-1979 and killed about half of the 6 million Cambodian population at the time. A man by the name of Pol Pot was an intellegant man from cambodia who got a scholarship to study in Paris. He studied communism and became obsessed with it. He then returned to Cambodia and decided to start the country over from scratch and rebuild a communist country. He told all of the people that he wanted a new Cambodia and to let him know of any special skills they had. He also told Cambodians who live in other countries to come back and help make a better Cambodia. He gathered all of this information and then he started to kill. He killed anyone with education, special skills, light skin and anyone with glasses. He didn't just kill the person he killed their entire family. He did this because he wanted everyone to be farmers and he did not want people with education to have an uprise against him. He killed the children and babies as well because he did not want them to grow up, find out what happened and get revenge. After 4 years the Vietnamese and the UN came in and they were able to stop him.
We visited the prison where victims were held and tortured to get more information about their family or other educated people they knew.
Then we visited the killing fields. People were not worth bullets so they would cut their heads off and burry hundreds of people in a huge hole. Some victim's heads were smashed and some were buried alive. Then they would pour chemicals over the bodies to kill those who had not died yet and also to control the smell because they did not want people around the area to know what was going on.
After our tour we went for lunch and headed over to the central market. It was huge. They sold everything. It was quite overwhelming.
Traffic is crazy here. They do not obey the traffic signs and just drive through what should be a 4 way stop. There are huge traffic jams because of this.
It was another really hot day so adter the market a few of us just went to the pool at the hotel to cool off and relax.
Around 5pm two other girls and I took a tuk tuk to the Thai boxing match. When we arrived we realized we were the other white girls in the entire stadium. It was a real cultural experience. It felt as though everyone was looking at us as we walked in. Good to know what it feels like to be the minority.
The boxing was entertaining. The place went crazy and rumbled from excitement. The match was televised. As we were watching the boxing, many random people just came in front of us and took our picture.
I was nervous about leaving the stadium in the dark. We had seen a fight earlier. Thankfully we made it back to the hotel safely with the same tuk tuk driver who drove us there. Then we headed out for pizza which was amazing!! I'm starting to get bored of rice and noodles. They eat it 3 meals a day here.