It's fair to say our first few days in Cambodia has been phnomenal (pardon the pun) in the capital, Phnom Penh.
On our first day we went to the maze that is the Russian Market. We got a Tuk Tuk and was our first experience on the roads, we passed cows, land rovers, people pulling carts with salted cockleshells on (their equivalent of peanuts) and families sat on roofs of cars.
On the Saturday we had a jam-packed day, going to the Killing Fields first. Driving out of the city we saw the poverty that outlined the city, we were told to put on masks because of the amount of dust. We drove in and out of pungent smells of rubbish and bbqs. Our tour guide told us of how he hates taking tours here, but grits his teeth for the money to send his children to private school. He was 9 when the Khmer Rouge ruled. Less than 40 years since the genocide.
The Killing Fields was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, juxtaposing the extreme horror that lies here. Over 17,000 people were transported here after being detained in S-21 to be killed. They were often bludgeoned to death to avoid wasting precious bullets. Walking into the glass Memorial tower we were faced with 9,000 skulls that were found here, labelled and in order of gender, age and type of death. We stayed here for 10 minutes, speechless and repulsed by the shock of this.
You must watch where you walk, with fragments of human bone and cloth scattered around the pits, left untouched. A tree had tons of bracelets hanging off the branches, donated by visitors, we then read the sign in front of it, it stated this was the tree children were beaten against. There were also fenced off areas the size of a double bed that were mass graves. One had 400 children buried there. Another, 300 people found without heads. A haunting and emotional experience for all of us.
High school turned torture and detention centre, S-21, Toul Sleng. This was the largest centre of detention and torture in the country. Pictures of the victims before and after torture filled the walls of the rooms. Pol Pot feared rebel among the people and therefore detained those with the most credited careers including doctors, teachers and ministers in S-21. One thing we found particularly disturbing was that many of the victims were smiling in their before photos as they were under the impression that they had been taken to the former high-school to be educated and were completely unaware of the pain and suffering that was yet to come.
Next was the Royal Palace where the King of Cambodia lives. The grounds were stunning, it was the most prestige and beautiful place we'd seen. The cover photo in this blog is one of the many photos we took there. Monks scattered the palace grounds, orange robes spotting the surroundings, very amusingly to us, taking photos of each other on their iPads.
This evening we got well and truly lost in Phnom Penh, after dinner when we tried to walk home. Chloe though it was South and I thought it was North and Charlotte really had no opinion and heavily hinted we got a tuk tuk, after about 2 hours of scouring the city we gave up and went for Charlotte's option. Turned out the driver didn't know where our hostel was either so that took another 30 minutes of reading maps and trying to speak Khmer.
Wifi has been on and off but we've all been making a real effort not to contact family and friends for the first few weeks, recommended from Project Trust to minimise homesickness. We're not ignoring you and want to speak to you all more than anything but we feel these first weeks need to be done alone.
Thanks for reading,
Chom Rieb Liah,
Esme and Charlotte!