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The capital of Cambodia; Phnom Penh is a strange place, its huge and laid out on a massive grid system, with no street names just numbers. Which makes navigation a little easier, but also I never felt like I really got to know the place, and was constantly using the map.
The history of Phnom Penh is closely linked with the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. with the Killing Fields close by, and Tuol Sleng, the S-21 prison in the city. We visited both, and it was really interesting and terribly sad to see what had gone on there. The Killing Fields near Phnom Penh was only 1 of around 300 places in Cambodia, but is the largest and most widely documented because of its links to the prison. There are about 130 mass graves there, and they have found 9000 people in 80 of them, and the bones that they have found in them are so badly broken and smashed, you can easily see the horrific ways in which most of them died. And the Killing Tree is particularly sad, where they killed the smaller children. It's a really peaceful place now, and they have a lovely memorial to them, and they all think it's really important to teach people, and foreigners about what went on, because of the secrecy at the time, to prevent it happening again. We also went to the Tuol Sleng Prison, where it was mostly Khmer Rouge cadres, or prisoners suspected of being foreign spies were held, tortured, and mostly sent to The Killing Fields nearby. There were only 7 survivors of the S-21 prison, and the only Khmer Rouge leader to be prosecuted was Comrade Duch, the guy who was in charge, and he is the only one to show remorse, or even admit what went on here. It's a very very sad place, it used to be a high school, and the rooms were converted into many tiny prison cells, or used as torture rooms. It's pretty unbelievable what went on here. They have walls and walls of head shots of a lot of the prisoners that arrived here, with huge numbers of really small kids, or women holding babies. It's very sad. But I think an important experience for us all, and opens our eyes to the things that a lot of people in Cambodia now had to live through.
We spent a lot of time in a local coffee shop (again horribly overpriced - hence our favourite spot!) A few icy frappucinos consumed here, a few rounds of hearts (just to keep Sean quiet/happy) and lots of reading - we are all massive bookworms in Cambodia it seems. We also spent an afternoon at the Russian market, which me and Tori in particular were excited about, when we read that a lot of the clothes from the designers and labels that are made in Cambodia somehow make their way here.... Of course it's mostly for people who are the size of Cambodians, and my arse is not as small as a Cambodians, so no Levi jeans for us. We got some knockdown trainers though, we are starting to prepare for the things we will need in South Korea, as we both only have tropical clothes, and it's currently deep winter in SK now, a massive shock is ahead...
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