Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phnom Penh

The capital of Cambodia! We arrived here and quickly realized that this city is absolutely huge. At least huge by the standard of the other cities in Cambodia. We once again arrived to the city a bit late, so we grabbed dinner at the hostel and then spent the rest of the night hanging out at the hostel bar.

Day 2

If you don't know, Cambodia has a bit of a dark history from when the Khmer Rouge ruled in the 1970's. The mercifully arrested, tortured, and killed thousands of people. While there are prisons, killing fields, and mass graves scattered throughout the country, the biggest ones are here in Phnom Penh.

Interesting fact: Some of these killing fields and mass graves are in inaccessible areas due to being surrounded by landmines. We also read in all guidebooks that you shouldn't wander off the beaten path because there are still hidden landmines throughout the country, leftover from Vietnam. A tad bit creepy/scary.

So after breakfast we headed off to S-21, the main prison that was used to torture prisoners. Prior to being a torture prison, the building used to be a high school. When the Khmer Rouge took over, they ran out all of the staff and turned it into the prison. I didn't take any pictures here. You weren't allowed to take pictures in the cells or rooms, but I wouldn't have anyways. I didn't take pictures of the outside either, it was all just a bit too sad. They tortured people in horrible ways here, trying to get information that I lot of times, the prisoners didn't have. Most people who were arrested didn't know what they did wrong. It was a crazy time of Cambodians attacking their own people.

Our next stop was the killing fields. These were just as depressing as S-21 was. Masses of people would arrive in the back of a truck, blindfolded, and later killed. Since bullets were expensive, people were killed by other means. It was all pretty gruesome so I won't go into detail.

Sorry this post was a tad depressing. Laura and I discussed the differences between visiting S-21 and the killing fields to visiting concentration camps in Europe.

Tomorrow Laura and split up. I'm headed to Indonesia and she's headed to Vietnam. We both have early mornings so after dinner we just laid low and hung out at the hostel. For the first time since I started this trip I'll be traveling truly alone again! Since Bangkok I've known someone going to the next location and hostel as I've been going. So cheers to showing up friendless in Jakarta.