Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Cambodia – Phomn Phen
Tuesday 24th November till Thursday 26th November
The coach trip took 4 hours to reach Phomn Phen. We drove through the city before stopping at the final destination. The drive in didn’t give us a very good first impression of the city. For a capital city it isn’t really well kept, a lot of the streets were full with rubbish piles and just generally wasn’t very nice. To be honest it’s just what you would expect from a third world country however it was the first time seeing a place look so run down. All the other cities were better looked after and kept clean. We were dropped off at the tour operator’s office and we didn’t have a clue where that was. We got talking to a couple of French guys who were just about to leave the city, so we asked them where we were and any recommendations where to stay. They advised us to take a Tuk Tuk towards the lakeside and head for “No Problem” Guesthouse as it was cheap and they enjoyed their stay there. So we found a friendly Tuk Tuk driver who took us to the guesthouse, we also booked him for tomorrow to take us on the tour to the killing fields. The guesthouse was quirky as it was built on the lake, the room was a little dindgy but it was only $4 a night….the cheapest we have found yet!!!! You could even see the water underneath the floor boards which was a little scary. The place had a nice decking area out the back of the building, with a pool table and lots of chairs to chill out in. After checking in we headed out through the narrow streets and alleyways to explore. Around the corner from the guesthouse were loads of shacks made into bars and cafes, the street was so narrow you couldn’t fit a car down there. It was definitely the area for backpackers ….cheap and cheerful. We enjoyed some lunch in a bar called “The Flying Elephant” before looking around the rest of the city. It took about an hour walk to the riverside. Basically the riverside was for the tourists with money and the lakeside was for the backpackers. We could tell this straight away as everything was more expensive. We enjoyed a nice walk along the riverside before chilling out in some of the bars.
We were up early ready for our tour of the killing fields. Had some breakfast at the “Lazy Gecko” $1 for cornflakes and milk!!! Our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up at 10am and we headed straight to the killing fields. Here we learnt all about the Khmer Rouge the Pol Pot regime. The Khmer Rouge were a rebel group who took over the government of Cambodia in the 1970’s their leader was Pol Pot, he turned Cambodia back into the dark ages and destroyed everything. Burnt down schools, hospitals, government buildings, banned money and tortured and executed anyone who was educated. Such as people who worked for the government, teachers, doctors, journalist…the list goes on. This included the wives and children of the men. The killing fields were where the Khmer Rouge took prisoners of S-21 and tortured and killed them. As you walk around the site you could see the original mass graves where hundreds of bodies were found. There were about 8 uncovered graves and many more which had not been discovered. They think there are hundreds more within the grounds and surrounded fields but have decided to leave them untouched. In the center of the site was a tall monument with different levels full of skulls of the bodies found in the graves, there were 8,000 skulls in total. On the bottom of the monument was a pile of the clothes worn by the victims killed. Walking around the site left us with an incredible feeling which is hard to describe, it is so hard to believe someone human could treat their own people in such a cruel and brutal way. Especially as the people killed were all innocent their only crime was being educated and clever, so many children and babies were also killed in such a horrendous way that I won’t go into detail. We spent an extremely depressing few hours here and then were taken to the next place, which didn’t get any better!!!! S-21 prison was originally run as a school until it was taken over by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. They destroyed the 3 buildings and turned it into a torcher prison. People were kept here for months being torchered before they were taken to the killing fields to die. In the first building the three floors were all the bigger cells where people were torchered, they still had the original beds in them. The 2nd building was divided into two. One side of the building there were cells made of brick and the other side were made of wood, they very only 2 meters by 1 meter big. The final building was full of the mug shots of all the women, men and children kept at the prison throughout the 4 years of the Khmer Rouge Regime!!! In total there were only 20 prisoners which survived the Khmer Rouge out of the thousands killed.
After the depressing tour we got dropped off by the riverside where we sat for hours just taken back by what we had learnt and seen that day. We would recommend you all to watch the film called “The Killing Fields” we watched in while we were in Cambodia and it is a very good film. The film helps you to understand more about what happened to the Country.
The next day was more relaxing. Our flight to Bangkok was due at 16.30 so we didn’t need to rush to the airport. Instead we chilled out on the decking at the guesthouse, had some breakfast before writing our postcards. We were picked up from the guesthouse about 13.00 and headed to the airport. We got majorly stung at the airport….$25 each for departure tax!!!! We were not happy as you pay to enter the country and your visa so why they have to charge this is unexplainable. So many tourists were unimpressed just like we were….a pre warning for any of you thinking of going to Cambodia!!!
Bangkok here we come…………………..
- comments