Vix and Al World Trip: Cambodia

Cambodia we love you!

The bus journey from Saigon to Phnom Penh (PP) (the capital of Cambodia) went smoothly, despite being minorly scammed out of a couple of bucks at immigration, but we're used to that kind of thing after Vietnam. As you enter Cambodia you can immediately see an increase in poverty and a drop in living standards.

PP is a large, vibrant city and there's lots to see and do. Along the riverside you find the expensive hotels and tourist restaurants and bars, set, slightly uncomfortably, next to a rough stretch of ground which is a lot poorer.

I pictured this guy near our hotel - yes there is actually a man and a bicycle under all that stuff!

One thing we did notice immediately was the increase in poverty (families living on the streets, children playing naked on the roadside). In the west of the city is the lake where you find houses and cafes on stilts and backpacker hangouts.

It's really cool here, great vibe and sunset views, however we learned that sadly the lake is going to be drained to make way for a large development... it will be a huge loss to Phnom Penh.

The Cambodians do everything (apart from short moto rides and some drinks) in US dollars, presumably because their own currency (the reil) is so fragile. We didn't know this however, and spent our first couple of hours trying to find a cash machine that gives out reil instead of dollars - that doesn't exist however so we eventually resigned and are now quite comfortable using the green stuff.

We immediatley found the people here to be MUCH nicer than in Vietnam. Despite their turbulent history they smile more and they don't shout at you in the streets or hassle you. There is a lot more begging though and it breaks your heart to see small children leading their blind or crippled fathers/mothers round, approaching tourists for money.

We went to see the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, where 17,000 innocent people were brought to die. At the centre of the sight stands a tall pagoda which houses thousands of human skulls, dug up from the mass graves which surround it. Some skulls are broken – these were the people that the Khmer Rouge decided to batter to death in order to save bullets.

As we wondered around the site we could hear the voices of children singing songs in the nearby school and we watched butterflies floating in the warm sunny air. It was strange to see this beauty and then read the information about the terrible things that happened there. We saw a tree where the soldiers attached a loud speaker which blasted out music so that the screams of the victims could not be heard.

Learning about these monstrosities that took place so recently was really disturbing, but we wanted to learn more and so moved on to the Tuol Sleng Museum. It was to this old school, known as Security Prison S-21, that the soldiers took thousands of people – old, young, male, female, babies, disabled/disfigured and anyone with an ounce of intelligence (even people who spoke foreign languages and wore glasses) – for detention, interrogation and torture. Some foreign nationals, unlucky enough to be caught up in the troubles, were also pictured.

Each person entering this place had their photograph taken – some of them even smiled for their picture unaware of their fate. It was completely heartbreaking staring into the eyes of the people whose photographs lined the rooms. Many of the victims were photographed after their torture and these gruesome pictures were also on the walls. Some rooms contained one metal bed and the sickening instruments of torture that were used there, on the wall of each of these rooms was a disturbing picture of the last prisoner who had been tortured in that room.

In another block we found rows of box-like cubicles where prisoners were detained.

We both felt completely depressed after going here and I couldn't take my mind off it for days. How could something so terrible as this happen only as recently as the 1970s? And in such a beautiful country with such lovely people?

One room contained detailed information on everything that happened during the Khmer Rouge era. It was interesting to learn that Pol Pot was himself educated in France, that the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and other cities in Cambodia in just a couple of days by telling the people that the Americans were going to bomb them, and that they destroyed much of Angkor and its temples. We also learned that they received their weapons from Thailand and China and that the Western powers allowed the Kymer Rouge to retain its seat at the UN general assembly until 1991.

The children in the next door school came out as we were leaving and as we drove past them in our tuk tuk they shouted "hello!" to us.

On our way back to the centre of town our tuk tuk broke down - in the middle of rush hour traffic!!! He had to dismount, trying to rev the engine while all the cars and bikes beeped at us.