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Phnom Pen, Cambodia
Crossing into Cambodia the differences with Vietnam are immediately obvious. Fields are uncultivated, many houses are still made of bamboo, roads are narrow and potholed, there are many beggars and some children running around naked. This is the poorest country that we have visited in our travels so far.
I had thought that Phnom Pen would be the place we had to get through to get to the good stuff in Cambodia but it turned out to be better than that.
First, the horrible history. Between 1975 and 1979 around 2 million Cambodians were murdered or starved to death by their elected government, the Khmer Rouge. That is nearly 40% of the population. We visited S21, the torture centre from which, having given their confessions and having named all of their accomplices, prisoners where sent to the Killing Fields to be executed. 16,000 people passed through its gates in 3 years and only 14 lived to tell the tale. Only 2 of the survivors are still alive and we met one of them, Bou Meng. We bought his book and had a picture taken with him. It gave a very personal touch to our visit. Having seen the photographs of the victims and the instruments of their torture we made our way out of town to their final resting place. Most of the mass graves had been opened and the bodies exhumed but in some places it was difficult to avoid walking on human bones. It was a deeply moving and bewildering experience. Most of the dead were selected on their education level - if you could read or had soft hands you, and all of your family, would be killed. Only 4 of the perpetrators were brought to justice at an ongoing war crimes trial, the rest continued in government after the liberation. Pol Pot, the leader, died of natural causes while under house arrest in 1998. There is a strong sense that justice has not been done here.
There is nothing like a good lunch to lift the spirits and, following a very good lunch indeed at another street kids project, we made our way to the Royal Palace. While not as grand as Bangkok's it was still a very opulent display for, what is now, a very impoverished country.
After dinner, we went for a massage given by blind people. I don't know if their blindness was a result of natural causes or their mothers exposure to Agent Orange, the defoliant used by the the Americans in Vietnam and Cambodia during the war. Anyway, they gave a great massage.
Hope the Marwicks and Smiths are enjoying their holiday
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