Part-1
Arrived early morning into Phnom Penh by public bus, the journey was ok as it was the same bus that we caught from siem reap to kompong Cham. The bus made one stop at a service station selling local delicacies such as fried tarantula, whole quails plus some kind of beetle thing that looked like a cockroach. Didn't get to try the fried tarantula as we were put off by the number of flies that were landing on them, hopefully will get another chance whilst I'm here.
I can tell I'm back in a big city as the heat seems to get trapped here and it appears hotter here than the other places I've been to, not that that makes any difference. I've also noticed the impact the war has had on the people who live here, I hadn't really seen any limbless people in the other places i'd visited but it is clearly more evident here.
As soon as we arrived in Phnom Penh I went for a walk around the city to find the royal palace. I found the royal palace ok although the palace itself was no where near as fancy as the grand palace in Bangkok, but it is definitely less busy.
After visiting the palace i chose to do the cyclo tour of Phnom Penh which was brilliant even if it was a little dangerous. The cyclo is different to a rickshaw as the passenger sits in the front instead of behind the cyclist. It was rush hour traffic so I was told but that did not seem to make any difference as the traffic is horrendously busy here with thousands of mopeds weaving in an out of the traffic. There also appears to be no right way, limited use of traffic lights and which side of the road to drive on. I definitely felt at times that I was peddled in a total death trap. I also had the greatest pleasure of my cyclo driver coughing up his lungs every few minutes and spitting it out, so I was getting twitchy thinking I was the one being spat on. On the tour we visited the statue of independence, lady phnom and wat penh. I think out of these wat penh was my favourite, It had a huge clock positioned in the front lawn, which was 10 minutes too fast. It also had a giant dragon at the front too that looked like it has been made of reeds or bamboo. The dragon was suppose to resemble Chinese New Year although I thought we were on the year of the snake...but they wouldn't have to do much to it to convert it to a snake when they choose that time as it had snake like features already.
The following morning we visited the S21 prison and the killing fields, the event was rather harrowing and sad experience but interesting none the less. The S21 prison is school that the khmer rouge converted in a prison. Each class room had been divided in cells for the prisoners and at the front of each room there was barb wire that would stop the prisoners from jumping. The idea was prisoners would be detained there and tortured before being killed and their bodies dumped at the killing fields. Thousands of people had been detained there and all but 7 had been killed. One thing that did surprise me was alot of the khmer rouge soldiers were children that had been taken from their parents and brainwashed to become a soldier, I thought the soldiers would be more older. The prison had pictures of the soldiers and the prisoners. I didn't feel too good at the S21 prison either, the heat and being a little dehydrated made me feel a little light headed so I had to sit down missing some of the tour.
The killings fields was even more somber than the prison. The fields were where they used to kill and chuck the bodies into shallow pits, the field tgat we visited had over 20,000 bodies buried in it. I was told that they are still finding bits of human bones during the wet season when the rain washes away the top soil exposing new bones. There were other horrendous things there, such as a tree that was used for killing young children and babies and another tree that used to play music from to drown out the screams of the people before being killed. Although I found the killing fields and S21 prison interesting, as it gives you an insight into the country's past, it was on the whole an upsetting experience.
On a much brighter note from phnom penh we are going to travel to our homestay. I've been looking forward to this experience for a while now. Unfortunately one of my gifts to the family has gone, the bag I was going to give them I used for my dirty washing and when I got my washing done they didn't return the bag. Never mind, i suppose someone will make good use to it and I still have some Kendal mint cake to give to family if they want that...it could be a new experience for them.