Phnom Penh - a short visit

The Royal Palace
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Took the early bus to Phnom Penh today - we were dishearted when a ropey old minibus came to pick us up and we squeezed into the last two seats with Lee just about hanging out of the door.  Our spirits were raised when someone told us that they thought that this was just a transfer bus to take us to the out of town bus station - phew!  After transferring to our bigger airconditioned bus we set off on our fairly non-eventful journey south to P.P which takes around 4-5 hours.  After the bumpy roads to Siem Reap we were pleased that we were now on tarmac roads.  Really good journey with two short stops for food and some dodgy Cambodian Karaoke on the TV - never find, it kept the bus amuzed.

Buddha in the grounds of the Royal Palace
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Once we arrived into the mad, hot bus station otherwise known as the Central Market in Phnom Penh, we got a tuk-tuk to the river side where we had read there was some decent guesthouses.  After the horror stories of shootings, muggings and worse we had heard we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a nice promenade with some pubs and guesthouses overlooking the river.  We settled on the California 2 guest house - only because we always wanted to say we stayed in Hotel California.  At USD17 per night it wasn't as cheap as we hoped but that also included breakfast so we stayed

All the prisoners were shackled by their ankles and their elbows where bound behind their backs

The graves of the last deaths at S-21 Genocide Museum
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We visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda in the afternoon which was around 200 meters from where we were staying - nice way to get away from the city sounds and smells but we thought was pretty much overrated.  Lots of places you cannot visit and we could see most of the buildings from the road.  However the Silver Pagoda was lovely.  Its named after the silver tiles on the floor of the pagoda, each one weighs 1KG and they have thousands.

Next day we visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum otherwise known as Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison which is in the centre of Phnom Penh.  This was an incredibly distressing but interesting place to visit.  Before the Khmer Rouge this used to be a high school and the place still looks like a school from the outside.  However all that changes when you enter the building.  The KR converted the classrooms into individual cells.  The lower floors had beds in the middle where they used to torture their prisoners.  The higher floor classrooms have been converted into lots of individual cells which only measure about 1 and 1/2 metres across.  All the prisoners were shackled by their ankles and their elbows where bound behind their backs.  All the prisoners biographies were carefully documented and there is a huge exhibition of photographs of all the people who met their end in this place.  All in all it is estimated that 10,499 prisoners where held here between 1975-1979 excluding around 2,000 children who perished here.

Some clothing from prisoners who died at S-21
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After leaving here we took a tuk-tuk to The Killing Fields at Chaeung Ek a small village around 14km south of Phnom Penh.  Here we decided to get a guide to take us around and give us more information.  The site is dominated by a huge Stupa which houses the skulls and clothing of the victims here - some 8800 people have already been discovered in lots of mass graves.  It is estimated that around 20,000 people could have been killed here but some graves may be under the lake on the site and they do not wish to disturb the remains.  Its really difficult to explain the impact a visit here has on you.  As you walk around the site, you can see pieces of clothing and bones sticking out of the mud under your feet.  I asked our guide if this was clothing etc from the victims and he said it was, everytime the rains come they uncover more and more bones and clothing etc.  They have no plans to conduct DNA testing on the bones recovered as the impact of the genocide was so huge that whole familes were affected and no one is left to supply DNA or even to acknowledge who is missing.

Some of the hundreds of photos of children held at S-21
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Altogether it is estimated that over 2 million Cambodians (and some foreigners) were killed out of a total population of 7 million.