The Mellow Capital
Trip Start
Mar 15, 2010
1
65
129
Trip End
Ongoing
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Sunday, July 25, 2010
We took an early morning bus to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was 2 and a half hours to the Vietnamese border and then another 3 hours to the capital. Apart from having our temperature taken by a weird space looking gadget that just hovered over our forehead for a
few seconds, the border crossing was simple and quick. On arrival, we had a walking tour around Phnom Penh and found it was a very mellow city compared to the hustle and bustle of the Vietnamese towns and cities. Nobody was in a rush to get anywhere. As usual, in the
afternoon it was now starting to drizzle just before the big storm. We made a run for one of the riverside restaurants to grab something to eat. The food is more curry-orientated here, being closer to Thailand, we feasted on a green and red curry, a welcome change! We had a wander around the night market, took in a children's fashion show and Andy invested in some cheap Foakleys (fake Oakleys), as he'd misplaced his other ones somewhere in the Mekong Delta the day before.
Monday 26 July
Our first stop of the morning was to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum on the site of S21, the abbreviation of Security 21. This was once a secondary school that was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Here, many thousnds were imprisoned under false pretences; the Khmer
Rouge told them they were to be “re-educated” so that they may further their education. In fact they were tortured and many finally taken to the killing fields where they were cruelly executed. The museum graphically presented the atrocities committed. In particular, there were many photos of the prisoners that were taken by the regime, along with their personal and family history that was documented when they were first imprisoned. From the 20 000 odd people (an exact number is not known) who passed through the doors, only 7 survived. They were rescued when the Khmer Rouge were brought down in Phnom Penh. Our next stop was the choeung ek (killing fields) where the prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves.
