Phnom Penh

One of the interogation rooms in S-21
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Six hours on a bus and we were in Phnom Penhl. In many ways it doesn't feel like a capital city, poverty is very much again in evidence with kids and amputees begging outside popular Western haunts and tuk tuk drivers hanging out on every corner. We had been reading up on the Khmer Rouge years and it was interesting although very harrowing to visit S-21 or Toul Sleng the one time school which was turned into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. 18,000 people were sent to S-21 between 1975 and 1979 and only seven survived. The rest were brutally tortured and interogated before being sent to the Killing Fields to be executed and buried in mass graves. We also went there and to be honest its all very hard to comprehend. You can see bits of material protruding from the ground presumably clothes of the victims. Sounds upsetting and sickening and it is but when you see how the Khmers are getting on with their lives today despite all they have been through relatively recently it is quite inspiring and very moving.Literally everyone we've spoken to has been affected in some way during the years of turmoil.

Photos of the prisoners line the walls. They are very hard to walk past
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While in Phnom Penh we were abe to meet up with friends we'd first met on the Inca Trail. It was great to see them and share stories of our travels over a few beers.