Phnom Penh

07-08/05/2017

The first city we went to in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh, home to some huge markets, a pretty big national museum with loads of interesting artifacts and statues from Angkor in it, some nice french colonial architecture, and a couple of horrific museums that detail the events and victims of the state sponsored genocide that claimed the lives of one quarter of the total population.

I didn't take pictures when I went to the killing fields. It was a horrible experience but I think its important to learn as much as possible about these events in history, especially since it only happened in the 70's. There is a monument in Choeung Ek, a stupa containing more than 5000 skulls of the victims found in the surrounding mass graves, many marked with the evidence of how they were killed, many also are plainly children and babies. Its a haunting sight on its own, but knowing that a lot of these people should still be alive today but instead are now just jawless skulls forever locked in an eternal silent scream of pain is a lot to take in. To this day more bones still emerge after the rain, and as you walk around you see rags and clothing coming up near the tree roots. I honestly don't remember learning about this at school. You tend to grow up thinking that people only did that kind of thing back in medieval times but knowing that a political party or ideology is capable of turning half a nation of people into mindless child killers really brings home how important it is to pay attention to politics and just what exactly is going on in the world, and not necessarily just trusting everything you are told.

Because that's not enough tragedy for one day we also went to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to learn more about the lengths people go to for power, the capabilities of human beings for carrying out the horrific torture of their fellow man, and the cowardice of the western nations who knew what was happening but refused to do anything about it.

We did visit the National Museum the next day - it was pretty cool but there wasn't enough information to put all the displays into context really so some of the importance was lost on me.

The next stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap and Angkor Wat which was bloody brilliant.