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Day 210
Bloody love Phnom Penh - which I am now going to refer to with a superscribed obelus thus PP. I have landed unassailably in my cousin's apartment in central PP which has become my Asian caravanserai for the next few days - and how eleemosynary and propitious he has been. We took the girls to a water park on day one, being cognisant of the fact, we would be subjecting them on day two to a family day out of genocide and torture at PP's national museum. The water park was reiteratively a further consecution of rusty trip hazards but at a better appraisement and with an actual functioning wave pool. We passed a happy hour in the sunshine while I read The Fry Chronicles - has anyone guessed? It was a great day out and the girls really needed to let off some steam; I really needed to be left alone to read this wonderful book and enjoy a meditative hour with a beer. The best bit was the 'no guns allowed sign' at the entrance to the park. How random. PP is a lovely city - clean, manageable, cheap, happy, sunny, structurally sound and well organised. Boulevards and grassy squares intersect long streets that lead to a river complete with canal river cruises and wooden boats. Located a wonderful cocktail bar for dinner which had a swimming pool - thus ensuing much mildly drunken hilarity. Found a fabulous dressmaker who will make the kids handmade dresses for £10 each. And me - for £15. Joy! I will be the belle of the office for about 5 minutes.
Day two we did indeed face the Genocide museum and Killing Fields and am unable to comment humourously on anything, probably ever again. A 20 minute tuk tuk journey out to the fields of the worst atrocities I have ever heard of. The most depressing sight I have ever seen - and I have been to Auschwitz. I fought tears the whole way round admist horrendous photographs of dying men, women and children. 8000 skulls behind a glass case, teeth and bones still discernable in the earth, black and white stills of pained torture victims - born and endured in my lifetime. MY lifetime - some as late as 1978 when I was a fat, plain, happy child munching Western excesses and oblivious to the grotesque obliteration of my Asian cousins. I was at school, enjoying a simple life while this total nutjob took over this beautiful country and subjected it to several lost future generations. Empty rooms where people were subjected to the worst torture. Blood stains barely 30 years old still on the floor. Rusty torture implements left to rot. I am appalled, humbled, shocked and repulsed by this megalomaniacal freak and the cruelties he subjected on this wonderful place. For the first time in my life I feel compelled to fall to my knees and pray for the lost lives and the tragedy around us all. So I do - but with complete self consciousness and silly, solipsistic tears. Sorry for the distressing photos but I firmly believe we should all see them. On a lighter note, still reading Stephen Fry. It's too much for me without a thesaurus xx
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