Soo-uh sei-dei....or hi in Khymer,

As you know we moved on to Phnom Penh (PP) after our lengthy stint in Sihanoukville. Our brief visit to PP turned into another long stay however as all the embassies were closed for a week due to Chinese new year so that scuppered our plans of gettinniur Vietnamese visas and moving on quickly. However, I guess we are making plans to break them on this trip!

We negotiated a good price for a tuk tuk from PP's bus terminal to the Top Banana hostel and before unpacking headed straight to the rooftop bar for an ice cold can of Anchor beer. Our first day Adds, Cat and I (Sam is still injured from his graceful departure from the blow up water slide down the wrong side) walked around the city for five hours wandering a length of the riverside and checking out Central Market and taking photos of the BBQ'd octopus and huge stalls selling nothing but bananas. We stopped by the river for a slice of pizza before heading back to the hostel pretty worn out.

After a couple of nights Top Banana had no space for us, so we moved to Okay Guesthouse which was nice but didn't have the same kind of social areas we had previously at Top Banana. I spent the first day lying in the park reading the book 'First They Killed My Father', sounds depressing I know.....it was! Basically I wanted to read the book before visiting the Killing Fields in PP as it's a personal account from the eyes of a five year old girl during the Khmer Rouge Regime. I managed to finish the book before bedtime and the following day we organised a tuk tuk to drive us around for the day for $10 for four of us to the S-21 museum and Killing Fields.

I don't really know how I can describe this without mutilating everyones good mood but here goes. Also some if you will already know the story or may find it too upsetting so feel free to skip a few paragraphs.

The Khmer Rouge were the leading party in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, the regime was led by a man who went under the alias Pol Pot along with five other main leaders, including one woman. The regime was known as the Democratic Kampuchea. On the 17th April 1975 the Khmer Rouge stormed into Phnom Penh and evacuated the city by declaring that they were under serious threat of American bombing. The citizens were moved out of the city and told they could return in 2-3 days. Their aim was to create an Agrarian based Communist society, this way of life stresses moral superiority of rural life based on farming rather than the supposed corrupt city life with banks and factories.

The regime demolished banks, burned books and murdered anybody who was classed as an 'intellectual' for example, doctors, nurses, teachers, students, even people who wore glasses as they were deemed intelligent. Because they relocated everyone else to the country side to become farmers the city came to a halt and all the schools, hospitals, banks and industrial companies were shut down.

Families were not allowed to communicate with eachother or they would be murdered and the population became overworked and starved. The Khmer Rouge arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone who defied society (which was about a quarter of the country) including anyone involved in any religious faction, any intellectual and anyone with any connection to the former government.

We went to visit Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school turned prison camp where there is evidence of the torture carried out on an estimated 17,000 people before they were removed and taken to 'The Killing Fields', which we also visited. This involved looking at the areas where mass graves were dug and people (men, women and children) had their skulls beaten in and their throats slashed before being thrown in a mass grave and buried. We saw a sign there explaining that they had a big sound system playing music in order to drown out the wails from the victims.

The total amount of deaths is estimated at about 2.2 million, half of which were executed and the other half expected to have died from starvation and disease.

On 5th January 1979 the Vietnamese armed forces invaded Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh and took over demanding that the Khmer Rouge must be abolished before they would withdraw.

There is so much more to this horrific story and I could go on forever, it has made me really interested in studying it properly. I should however, finish by pointing out that even though Pol Pot died in April 1998, the remaining leaders apologised (how honorable!!!!) and either surrendered or were captured. One man who's title at the time was Head of the Torture Chamber killed around 16,000 people was sentenced to serve about 11 hours for every life taken.....astonishing! These leaders have told their stories and explained that they were also tortured and had to follow orders in order to save their own families lives. I can't believe that this case it still open and that the highest ranking leaders of the Khmer Rouge are still in detention awaiting United Nations trial now and only one man was sentenced, he received 35 years in prison (at aged 69) this was only sentenced in July 2010. The remaining leaders will most probably not live to see the trial given that they are aged between 80 and 85!

As you can imagine after our day at the S-21 museum and The Killing Fields we weren't in super high spirits so we went back to the hostel, rather than, may I add, going to a shooting range afterwards. Apparently this is part of a package day tour that is sold to tourists but we thought it was a bit hypocritical after spending a day learning about the Khmer Rouge's torture tactics. Instead we went to a local noodle soup joint and had some tasty food then went to bed.

On Friday we decided we were a bit sick of walking around so we hired bicycles and cycled around the outskirts of the city for a few hours. This may sound like a relaxing day out, if you were to experience some PP traffic you would probably have tried to stop us (mums). Let me try and paint a picture for you, the roads are wide and lanes nonexistant. The roads are made up of about 60% mopeds/motorbikes, 10% cars, 20% tuk tuks, 5% bicycles and 5% food carts on wheels. Red lights exist but are by no means used and everyone drives on the right hand side of the road, by everyone I mean 90% of road users, some use the left hand side if they fancy it. So, we are cycling up a main road with traffic on every side of us honking like there is no tomorrow, I'm pedalling as fast as my legs will pedal trying to make it though the green light before the coundown timer gets to zero.....then out of nowhere a moped is in my lane staring me straight in the eyes daring me not to move, he's on the wrong side of the road and I'm sensing a head on collision if I don't swerve sharpish. I have a split second to make my decision and make a quick check to my left to make sure I'm not going to pull out in front of a tuk tuk....I am....s***, panic stations. At the last second mr moped hooks a left into a side street and my path is clear once again...phew, ok now for that bloody green light, I check the timer 5...4...3... pedal pedal pedal 2...1...red aaaaaaaagh I've missed it! THEN WHY AM I NOT STOPPING? Not a clue, so I'm in the middle of a huge intersection on a push bike complete with bell and basket, I'm determined and I look forward and see my space, in front of a big black 4x4, behind a Lexus Jeep and with a thousand mopeds coming at me from all four directions. I make it, just, to the other side and breathe a sigh of relief which then turns into an exhilarated scream of joy, the adrenaline is pumping. Adds comes flying past with the same look on his face, followed by Cat and Sam and I know we've all been through the same thing. We all feel so alive it's incredible, we stay out on the roads for hours, going nowhere in particular, just not home. We get more and more confident and more and more daring, most fun I've had in ages.....!!!!!! I'm doing this again.

So guess what me an Adds did the next day, you got it, went for a cycle. This time we went up through the centre of the city on it's main road and crossed the river on the Japanese Frendship Bridge. We cycled red dusty tracks until buildings became less and less frequent and oxes, cows and ponies more and more frequent. We stopped for an ice cold can of pop in a tiny cafe before heading back to the city. We cycled to Wat Phrom which is a temple in the top of Phnom Penh's only hill, it was covered with hundreds of really cute, some ugly and a few really naughty monkeys. We had a beer and some lunch before heading home late afternoon.

Amongst eating our way across town as usual we also went to the Russian market, which was rumoured to be brill for cheap brands etc, in real life it was pretty s***e and stunk like you wouldn't believe. Anyway, that was yesterday, today we are visa'd up and ready for Vietnam. In fact, we are pulling into the bus station in Ho Chi Minh City as I write. It's sunny and still 33 degrees same as Cambodia and Thailand. We are all buzzing with excitement and full of plans and ideas for this wonderful country......now we are off to do what we do best....explore!!!

Big love from our travelling foursome

Lee-aa suhn hao-y, goodbye Cambodia....GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

X