A Hard Day

Today was pretty hard going. We visited the Tuol Sleng Museum in the morning, which was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge. It doubled as a torture chamber, where brutal punishment was inflicted on the captives (most of whom seemed to be Khmer Rouge members themselves) to extract fabricated confessions. In the afternoon we visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, which is where the prisoners were transported before being executed and buried in mass graves. About 50,000 corpses were found there, and thousands of skulls are on display. In total up to 3 million people were killed during the four year reign of terror of Pol Pot.

We both feel really down and drained after the day. We feel a mixture of horror, sadness, anger and confusion - how could these people have been so evil to their own countrymen? We need to do a bit more reading to try and get our heads around what went on....but at the same time we would like to put today behind us.

Cambodia is not what we expected. In some ways it seems better off than Vietnam - proportionally there are a lot more cars on the road, and the bars and restaurants for ex-pats are very westernised. At the same time there is more poverty here - lots of families sleeping on the streets, and quite a few beggars. It feels a bit like India in the way that there is such a gulf between the rich and the poor.


On Tuesday we saw the other side of Phnom Penh - beautiful palaces and interesting museums. Tomorrow morning we head off to Kampot, which is a sleepy town in the middle of a National Park.