Cambodia

Cambodia: 30th August 2011 to 5th September 2011

Total days travelled: 142

We were only in Cambodia for a few short days, but managed to see one of the most harrowing sites and awe inspiring sites I've ever been to.

We started in Phnom Penh with a trip out to S21 which was a prison based in a school building during the Pol Pot years.  Of the 20,000 or so people imprisoned there just seven survived.  Of them three still live and hopefully at least two of them (who we were lucky enough to meet) will still be well enough to testify at the war crimes trials that should finally happen later this year.  The place was absolutely harrowing.  The schoolrooms had been turned into torture rooms where the educated and skilled were imprisoned until it was time to be shipped off to the killing fields.  I think somehow the place was that much more moving as it all happened so horribly recently, even within my lifetime.  What's worse is that we don't seem to learn - similar horrors are still ongoing in the world.

I didn't take any pictures, but you can read and see a bit more if you follow the link above.

From there we went off to one of the Killing Fields.  This is where prisoners were taken to be beaten to death (partly at least to save on the cost of bullets) and tipped into mass graves.  Again, it was harrowing.
Some of the graves have been excavated and for a while the skulls were stored in wooden huts (and certainly that was the image I had), but they've now been placed in a large stupa in the middle of the site.  Walking around the place was awful, with bones, teeth and clothes emerging from the mud - apparently more surfaces every rainy season.

After a truly horrible day we met up, dressed in our finery, for some drinks at the Foreign Correspondents' Club on the river to celebrate/commiserate the last 6 weeks of the trip.  All I can really say is that a good time was had by all and it was a lovely reprieve from the morning's activities.

Gin martini at the FCC

The following day I forced Jenn and her hangover for a quick trip round the palace before the heavens opened again (and when the heavens open in SE Asia in the rainy season it gets a little damp).

Palace, Phnom Penh

Palace, Phnom Penh

Palace, Phnom Penh

We then headed off for Siem Reap which is the town from which you access what I think is one of the most amazing places I think I've ever visited, Angkor Wat.  The place was built as a truly enormous temple complex about 900 years ago, when we were still scrabbling about in the mud, and supported a huge population.  Amazing.

And some other pictures in Cambodia:

A civilised glass of wine

With Jenn on a tuktuk

"Master of Auditing"

Roadside food - deep fried bugs

Roadside food - deep fried spiders

Roadside food - baby chickens or similar small bird

Just Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore to go before this particular trip finishes.  But, fear not, I'm not planning on being back in the UK til Xmas.  Laters, C