The day after, we headed to two of the main sights to see near Phnom Penh, Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng - otherwise known as The Killing Fields and S21. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge (after taking power) killed around 1.7 million (the estimate varies, up to 3 million) Cambodians, about a quarter of the countries' population. All intellectuals were killed, that includes doctors, teachers, anyone who spoke a foreign language, anybody who wore glasses. They forced everybody out of their homes and sent them to labour camps where they were basically starved and worked to death. On top of this many innocent people were imprisoned, tortured and eventually murdered. It sounds like a completely horrific and tragic time. S21 is perhaps the most famous of the prisons at the time, 20,000 people passed through it over the four years the Khmer Rouge were in power, 7 survived (one of which we met). The rest were transported (after torture and interrogation) to the killing fields to be executed and thrown into a mass grave.
We'd learnt a bit about what happened in Cambodia over the past few weeks, we've both been reading a couple of books about it which are good but very dark - my friend Laura got me First, They Killed My Father as a parting gift in Siem Reap. I read it in two days, it was the account of a girl who was five in 1975, and her family - I'd definitely recommend it, but it is very dark. Anyway, the point was that seeing these places really brought it all home. It's a bit surreal looking around to realise that anyone we see that is over about 35 years old has lived through it, and pretty much everybody here has been affected by it through their friends and families.
We didn't take too many photos for obvious reasons, it was a pretty grim day but interesting nonetheless. I think the Cambodian people have been my favourite so far, everyone is so nice here and so upbeat - it's strange to think what was happening here so recently.
 |
| The 7 suurvivors - we met the one third from the right |
 |
| Some of the victims - there were many more photos like thís. |
After that we headed for some dinner at a great place called the Friends Restaurant. It is a restaurant run by a charity that helps street kids, and the staff at the restaurants are students that are finishing the programs and on the verge of getting qualifications in the catering industry. The food was by far some of the best we've had in Asia, but a bit on the pricey side.
The next day we had a fairly chilled out day, checked out the market and had a wander. I bought two new books, one called Lucky Child, the follow up to First, They Killed My Father, and one called The Girl In The Picture, which is about a girl who lived through the Vietnam war - this girl.
That night we checked out a couple of clubs - it was bizarre, but fun. We checked out the club where Diplo was supposed to play - turns out that the day he was supposed to play in Phnom Penh he actually played in Ho Chi Minh - so we wouldn't see him afterall (in case you're wondering about time discrepancies, thís blog was written over two different days). Oh well, after explaining that we came to Phnom Penh a day early to see him, the Glaswegian on the door changed hís stance from me not being allowed in at all (because I was wearing a vest), to letting us in for free - silver lining! At the end of the night the three of us (Me, Martin and Benson - Maddy was at home in bed by this point) hopped on the back of the same scooter (that was four of us including the driver) to head home - in hindsight a stupid idea, but also quite fun. We had to stop when my hat fell off, other than that we arrived in our individual pieces without a hitch.
The next day, hungover, we jumped on the bus bound for Vietnam!
Telefon Tel Aviv remix of Apparat - both worth listening to, Apparat in particular!
0 comments:
Post a Comment