Phnom Pehn And the Khmer Rouge

I ended my last post in my last night in Siem Reap after a another night out. I am now in Kep in the South of Cambodia writing this from my guest house garden with the sea and beach less than 2m away.

Sunday 4th December

Myself, Raami and Thelma were getting picked up at 9:30 from their hotel. After leaving early the night before i wasn't feeling too bad despite more buckets being consumed. I grabbed a tuc tuc to their hotel, by 9am they still hadn't surfaced. Turns out they didn't get back until 5am and i had give them a knock to drag them out of bed, Raami really looking a little worse for wear. We were picked up at 9:30 in a minivan and transferred to Siem Reap bus station, if that's what you could call it. We boarded the bus around 10am and set off on the 6hr journey to Phnom Pehn. The bus was local with hardly any leg room, it was hot and humid on the bus and all seats taken. This journey for me was one of the worst. Apart from the lack of leg room, the bus driver was having some sort of relationship with the horn, I swear he had the horn pushed down for the whole journey, I know in south east Asia that they use they horn to warn people that there passing if that person was in the middle of the road, however I was watching down the middle isle and for the majority of the time other road users were not in the middle of the road! It drove me insane, every time i dropped off he would be beeping again! I was almost at the point of going to ask him to shut the F**k up. The night before while eating dinner, a young Cambodian guy had been selling books about the Killing Fields, called 'Children of the Killing Fields' being without a book since finishing the 'backpacker' I decided to buy one at the cost of $4 and thought it would give me a bit of background on what happened before visiting Phnom Pehn and the killing fields. So not able to sleep due to 'Mr I love my horn' I decided to read my book. The book as it suggested told the stories of Cambodians who were children at the time of the 'Khmer Rouge' regime. I'm not going to go into the in's and out's of the regime in here but basically  for those of you that don't know under the Khmer Rouge government regime, mass genocide was committed to more than 1/3 of the Cambodian population. The stories i read in the book are some of the most horrific and saddening stories i have ever read, the fact that also that this Genocide happened only happened as late as 1975-79, 30 years ago made it even worse. I will admit I shed more than a couple of tears reading the book, I couldn't carry on reading and decided to put the book down for a while. Raami asked if he could read a few chapters, with 30mins he was feeling the same, Thelma then had her turn with the same reaction. After a couple of stops and 6 hours later we arrived in Phnom Penh. What a contrast in city compared to Siem Reap, of course being the capital it was much bigger with people but it instantly reminded me of India. The traffic was mayhem, full of motorbikes, tuc tuc's, both motorised an non, bicycles and cars. I hadn't seen traffic this busy since Bangkok and that was almost a month ago. What i found surprising for what is classed as a poor country is the amount of nice cars, Lexus and BMW's galore, even a few Ferrari's floated about. That nostril burning smell of India that I remember was also present in parts, as we drove through to the bus station, though not nearly as bad as India. We exited the bus and as usual when arriving a new destination we were bombarded by tuc tuc drivers. We3 grabbed our bags and picked our lucky tuc tuc driver. We hadn't booked any accommodation but had wrote a couple down and asked him to take us to one of them. A American girl called Arella who we had got chatting asked if she could tag along. So the 4 of us made away across the grid system city centre looking for the Velokomen guesthouse, the tuc tuc drive spoke good English and knew the place. On arrival the guesthouse was full, so the tuc tuc drive said he knew of a nice place not far away for cheap price and roof top bar and restaurant, usually being sceptical about these things we had some good recommendations for accommodation by drivers in Cambodian previously so agreed to see it. The driver had done well and after Thelma checked out the rooms, we were soon dumping our bags and checking into the '11 Happy' guesthouse. I shared a twin with Raami and Thelma with our new American friend, the price originally $15 per night, per room, we got for $13. The hotel was nice, with 3 floors of rooms, (no lift, and we were on the 3rd floor) and a very beautiful and chilled roof top bar, with pool table, plenty of comfy seating and views of the city and free wifi to boot. That evening we ate in the roof top restaurant and relaxed and then got an early night. We arranged with our Tuc Tuc man to meet us at the hotel at 8:30am and for $20 he would take the 4 of us to the Killing Fields, S21 prison and the national museum.


Monday 5th November

I rose early and felt quite refreshed after a good nights sleep. As yet i hadn't sorted my Vietnam visa and for Vietnam you are unable to get the Visa at the border. The hotel however provide a service where they would it for you, Thelma also hadn't got hers so we spoke to the most helpful women at reception who thought must run the place, as she dealt with everything and anything, the rest of the staff though wanting to be helpful spoke hardly any English and didn't really have a clue, it turns out she didn't run the place, in our eyes she bloody should have and really she did, her patience and calmness was outstanding. The visa would be $50 for a month and would be ready by the end of the day, I actually only needed a 15 day visa, but this she advised took 2 days, which was weird and we were leaving the following day for Kep. So after finally sorting our visa's and our tuc tuc diver waiting a good hour for us we set off for the Killing Fields, it would be a 30min journey of around 18KM. I was unsure on what to expect, I think if I hadn't read the book on the bus the day before, i think i would have gone in like most tourists with no expectations. I now had some background from real Cambodians and it put me in a sombre mood. The entrance fee was $5, which included an audio tour. Apart from a monument, which was a building in the middle of the fields, there were no other buildings, just a lake and fields. It actually looked a very peaceful and beautiful place, you would never know that there were 129 mass graves discovered were 20,000 people were slaughtered. The audio guide was amazing and unless you actually get a guide, its a must for the killing fields tour, there are very little signs or boards explaining things and without the audio guide you cant appreciate or understand what really went on here, i saw people walking round with no audio guide or actual guide, these people really would not have appreciated what really happened here. This killing field is only 1 of hundreds around Cambodia, as I mentioned early nearly 1/3 of people either died through bad conditions, murdered or committed suicide. For me the Killing fields represented pure and utter evil, and some of inhumane ways that some of the men, women, children and babies were killed will stick in my memory forever. There were 129 separate mass graves, one of the containing over 100 women, babies and children, more than half have been excavated but the remaining have been left to rest. The monument building which was erected in memory of the people that died hosted glass shelves. Each tier contained human remains containing different bones and skulls, it seems very morbid and quite shocking to see but its a symbol to show others of the  The tour lasted around 2 hours and by the time we finished it was midday and hot. We found our tuc tuc driver and we headed for the 'S21 Prison'. It took around 20mins to get to the prison. The S21 prison is actually now the 'Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum' and before the Khmer Rouge regime was a former school. Just like the killing fields, it seems like a peaceful place with coconut trees and flowers in the surrounding gardens. However, the surrounding buildings were far from peaceful and nice. With 3-4 huge blocks of 3 storey's, the housed torture rooms and prison cells. The cells some still standing were purposely built by the Khmer Rouge, huge rooms made into row after row of 5ft by 3ft cells. Alot them still standing showed how poorly and the prisoners had to live. Again i wont go into details, there is too much write, but the stories again were harrowing, brutal and evil. S21 was used to house over 20,000 prisoners during the Khmer Rouge regime, all bar 7 people were at some point between 1975-79 were transferred to the killing field and massacred. The museum pays tribute to a lot of the dead by showing pictures or should i say mugshots of them, the photo's also showed the disgusting conditions as well as dead bodies and torture. It was sickening and at times hard to believe how another human beings can treat another in this way. we spent around 2hours walking round before leaving. Everyone now hungry we asked the driver to take us to a good cheap place to eat. Again our little tuc tuc man didn't let us down and for less than a dollar we had some good local Cambodian food. After lunch we visited the National Museum. There isn't much to say about the museum, it was like most national museums, full of artifacts and Cambodian history. After an hour we headed back to hotel and for the rest of the afternoon chilled in the roof top garden. That evening with decided on a few drinks. They sold 3L towers of the local 'Angkor' beer, at $12 a tower my attempt at having a few days off the beer soon disappeared!! The 4 of us were soon joined by a Canadian called Sarah who had been sat alone, she chipped on the towers and we sat around chatting and listening music. After 3 towers and feeling a little tipsy we all hit the sack. We were leaving at 9.30am the following day for Kep having booked our bus tickets earlier through the hotel for a mere $5 each.

So Phnom Pehn had really been a quick stop over, the city was busy and congested. We had only really come to see the story of the Khmer Rouge Regime and the horrific story of Genocide of over 3million people. I think that alone is one reason not to stay too long as well as really not much else to do in Phnom Pehn. It had been interesting if not harrowing. Kep would be a complete contrast, a sleepy little town on the coast to relax and chill out. i recommend that if you are coming to Phnom Pehn that you read up about the Khmer Rouge regime first, even if horrific and harrowing sometimes its something that the world should be aware of.