One thing that really bugs me about travelling is getting hounded by tuk tuk/motorbike/taxi drivers as soon as you get off the bus in a new place. They are like bees round a honey pot and don't like to take no for an answer. Even though the likelihood is that we do need some sort of transportation to get to the hostel, the stubborness in me begrudges feeling forced to take their service so we wander down the road a bit further and choose our own tuk tuk/taxi.
After a full day of travelling from Sihanoukville we were quite tired so had dinner and went to bed - not easy when your dorm is next to the hostel bar!
With only one day to spend in Phnom Penh we went to the killing fields and the S-21 prison. Both were horrific. The two of us barely said a word to each other during the audio tour of the killing fields as we listened to the horrors and were stunned into silence. The fact that such atrocities happened not that long ago and those responsible had only started being prosecuted in 2009 is awful. The worst part for me was the 'killing tree' which was discovered with blood and brains all over it as the Khmer Rouge murdered babies by whacking their heads against the tree. There are still bones etc being discovered and you can see fragments of them still on the ground as you walk round. The tour concludes with the Memorial Stupa which is full of skulls colour coded by how they were killed.
Just as we were leaving the heavens opened and there was a thunderstorm which lasted for hours. We got back in the tuk tuk and drove to the next stop, the S-21 Torture Prison. This place was originally a high school which makes it all the more eerie - it feels like a prison but it also feels like a high school. It certainly gave me the chills to wander round seeing pictures and reading about the horrific ways in which they tortured the innocent prisoners. In total 3 million out of a population of 8 million Cambodians were killed under Pol Pot's regime.
Y x
