Not for the faint hearted

We ended our trip off in Siem Reap with a Safari dinner to various restaurants and a walk to quite a few markets and what ever store we could think off to go hair dryer hunting. Yes, we managed to break the hairdryer (Plastic pieces shooting all over the room). AND THIS IS THE ONE APPLIANCE I ALWAYS KNEW MY MOM CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT. No success we decided to have an early night in as we had to re do that six hour bus journey back to Phnom Penh at 07h00 the next morning.

Travelled on a different bus this time and mom seemed to forget about the "DIRT" in Cambodia for a while (that hair dryer must have been on her mind) until we made a stop and ran into the"local cuisine" again. I might be back in mom's bad books. She just can't stop staring at the Tarantula's with the hair standing up in her neck of course. Oh and did I mention we couldn't dry our hair this morning...

Well we reached Phnom Penh safely and went to sort out my visa, with a slight problem. I can't get it on time which means we needed to change our flights back to Bangkok. So off we went to the flight agent only to find the office closed and having to re do everything again the next day.

Up nice and and early in the morning we went to the travel agent and changed our flights and set off for a morning full of shocking fun in the vibrant city of Phnom Penh. Our first stop for the day was the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre more widely known as the Killing Fields.

(A room full of skulls)

(Up close)

(A jaw bone in the ground that we walk on)

Thousands of people were executed here in the worst ways during the reign of the Khmer Rouge which finally ended in 1978. There are hundredsof skulls on display of peoples remains which was found in mass graves on this piece of land. Some areas still have remains in the ground that haven't been excavated. You can see the bones and pieces of clothing set in the ground.

Family member come to this site to pay respect to their loved ones whom where executed here by placing messages, and tokens of love with the remains of the dead. These tokens are anything from photos and cigarettes or sweets.

From there we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocidal Museum, in earlier existence known as S-21. This used to be a school until the Cadre's from the Khmer Rouge occupied it as a secret prison to torture Cambodians and people from all over the world who they felt were enemies of their new revolution.
(It looks like a normal school from outside - apart from all the barb wire)

They tortured and killed about 18000 people in ways you can not imagine, this included whole families of the people they considered their enemies, small children, old people whatever and whomever they felt needed to be "Discarded" of.

To see something like this is an absolute eye opener. You are shocked to your core and all of a sudden your own problems seem irrelevant. There are so many Cambodians that still live this nightmare today, dreamingof their lost loved ones at night.

Barbed wire was used not only to keep unwelcome people out of the "prison grounds", but also to make sure prisoners where kept inside the building areas so that they were unable to commit suicide. This was against prison policy as it would mean that prisoners didn't suffer enough and certain information couldn't be extracted from them.

Once there wasn't enough adult Cambodians left to fight for the revolution, they made use of kids.

(Brother number one himself - "Pol Pot" the man responsible for all the killings)