We were due to arrive 8am into the capital but 5:30am we arrived! The fact that we ended up sleeping in other people's beds the other side of the bus gave us an indication that we might have been travelling a bit speedily!!! We jump onto a remork with another couple and get out at independence monument. Our hotel was not far from here, we were a bit early so we wandered the streets, eventually finding a French bakery, wow, coffee, orange and a proper croissant ( we are very pleased about the French influence in the country)!. We arrived at the hotel 7am ish with the view to dropping our bags and visiting the genocide museum, but once again, result, we are shown to our room, and what a room it is!! Much needed nap taken and we walk to the museum, this place was once a school but was used as a torture prison and named S 21 during the Khymer Rouge reign of 3 years 8 months and 20 days. Of the 14000 inhabitants only 7 survived. It was a heavy, emotional visit and even to write about the experience, the learning and visual aspect fills me with tears. Horrendous stuff and even more shocking that it was in our life time, it has really hit us hard... We are very sad.
We return to the hotel and make it up to the pool bar and roof terrace for some much needed light relief. The trip to the 'killing fields' with No 1 our remork man was booked for the next day.
30 minutes drive from the capital and we are at the main monumental site a killing field (mass grave) in itself but also the National Memorial Centre - The Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre. For the next few hours we listen intently via the headphone set provided and wander. The attrocities heard and gruesome visuals are too traumatic to write about or recollect, honestly we are in sadness (maybe a little bit of shock) for days comprehending that this really did happen! But it did! The crazy thing is the perpetrators are slowly getting off by dying of old age or pleading insanity....criminal. A thoroughly informative few days and the only thing to lighten the mood was obvious...yep find a shopping centre and shop. We really like Cambodia maybe as much as we liked South Africa and definitely our favourite Asian destination so far.........
Upon return we book our bus ( a big, slow one) for the border crossing to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City, sunbathe swim and sleep ready for Mr No 1 to take us to the station for 8am......