The capital of Cambodia and the heart of many an atrocity. I feel a bit like a voyeur, my main reason for visiting is to see the Tuol Sleng - Museum of Genocidal Crime and the killing fields. It's a sobering experience, even the bad English on the signs doesn't produce it's normal response of a smile from me.
Tuol Sleng is the worst, there are many pictures and it's not difficult to imagine yourself in that place. Everything is so recent - there's a section of pictures that shows then and now of victims and perpetrators. The stories are a mixture of the tragic and bizarre - the worst part is that many are still young in the now pictures.
The killing fields is the site of mass graves and although it has a 'stupa' of skulls it isn't the same. i think it's because your not continually relating to torture and what people must have gone through. The pictures, and artifacts at Tuol Sleng are pretty gruesome.
I don't like Phnom Penh, it's took me 3 days to decide why. It's not the dirt, the smells, the noise or even the constant badgering of whether i want a tuk-tuk or not. tuk-tuk sir - "no thanks", moto my friend - "no thanks", where you go, "this way", tuk-tuk sir - "no thanks", moto my friend, "wibble". The main reason: It's not easy to walk around. I like to walk around, it's not even that they don't have pavements here, it's just that they're always full of cars, bikes or rubbish or anything else that shouldn't be on the pavement. You continually have to use the road - roads that have a million motorbikes, many of them going the wrong way. The driving test is just one question: who do you give way to. Answer: anything bigger than you. Grrrr and while I'm having a rant, i got chased by a dog yet again. There were many other cyclists and dogs are supposed to be colour blind - why me!
