I am pre warning you all that this is a long post, do not feel the need to read the entire thing right away, pause and have an intermission in-between, grab a coffee or pop or whatever floats your boat and return for the rest of my story!
We arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday and walked around and became familiar with the place. Its quite crazy here, and although the population is less than that of Ho Chi Minh city, I found it more congested and busy. It's a nice change of pace from the beach town though. After exploring around the streets a bit, we headed to the local shopping mall and got our first taste of Asian malls. Insanity if you ask me. The mall consisted of about 7 levels and each floor was dedicated to something different. First floor was some clothes and a grocery store, second was perfumes and clothes, third was a food court, fourth was shoes (my personal favorite ), fifth was electronics, sixth was household items, and finally seventh was an arcade and a rollerblade rink! It was pretty neat watching the people rollerblade because there were jumps and stuff for them to go off, I definitely would break a bone attempting some of the things we saw them doing.
We headed back to our hotel with empty stomachs and ended up grabbing grub from a vendor on the street. Stir fry and an egg for 50 cents. Not too shabby, and it was delicious. At 630 at our hotel they were playing a film called the killing fields, and since today we went to the actual killing fields we decided to watch it. I recommend everyone who reads this blog to watch it. It actually was such an educational film about a reporter and his assistant who were in Phnom Penh in 19767 when the Khmer Rouge had briefly taken over the government and committed genocide on a mass scale of anyone they believed to be going against their style of government. Millions of people died during this stage of Cambodia's history whether they had been Cambodian or foreign individuals. The movie lasted two hours and afterwards we just crashed from our day of walking in the heat.
Today my day started out fabulous. A little facetime back home to the family, the entire family at that one, and then our tour. Our first stop had been the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. This was once a high school but once the Khmer Rouge took over the city, and mass evacuated the entire population of Phnom Penh to the countryside, they turned this school in a torture facility designed for detention, interrogation, torture, and finally the killing of the individuals they kept imprisoned there. The name they gave the detention facility was S-21 to prevent suspicion about what occurred there. The facility held up to nearly 6 000 prisoners at one time. When the government put an end to the Khmer Rouge rule, and collected what was left in the Tuol Sleng facility, they found 14 victims corpses, photographs of all the prisoners that had been held there, films, prisoner confession archives, shackles, and torture tools.
Every single prisoners photo was up for display around the museum. As well they still had torture tools up for display, ropes, shovels, hammers, nearly anything was used as a torture device. There were pictures that displayed victims that had died from their injuries as well as torture victims. Three stories from survivors of the torture facility were also up for individuals to read. It sounded terrible, one man arrived at the facility with his wife, only to never see her again afterwards. He went on to describe how when he arrived he had hope it would be OK but after being thrown into the cells his hope vanished instantly. It was sad, there were tiny children's pictures all around that held been held there and tortured. There were four different buildings for the prisoners, each with various uses. Building A was constructed for individuals who were thought to have been leading an uprising against the Pol Pot revolution (Khmer Rouge rule) and were thrown into rooms that were 6 by 4 meters with glass on the windows to prevent outsiders from hearing the screams of the prisoners while they were tortured. The other three buildings had smaller cells made of brick where more people were stuffed into the cells all together. S-21 had employed 1684 staff to maintain the facilities, security, torture, etc. In the very last room of the museum, they held remains from the torture victims. Mostly skulls, all of which had suffered injuries to the head. Some of the skulls were torn apart, others had tiny holes in the top, most likely caused by some sharp object smashing them on the head. It definitely made the entire tour sink in that much more.
After leaving the museum we headed to the Choeung Ek killing field just outside Phnom Penh. There were numbers of killing fields in Phnom Penh at the time of Pol Pot revolution, this was a place where individuals were taken and murdered on a mass scale. They would arrive blind folded and arms tied behind their backs usually at night, to prevent anyone around the area from knowing what was actually going on. Previous to be taking to a killing field an individual would be told they were being forgiven for their crimes and their slate was being wiped clean. Sadly, they were just one of the many who created some of the mass grave cites that are all around the area. When the grave sites were excavated after the revolution they found 400 skulls and remains in the largest mass site. At another site they found over 150 headless corpses and another site consisted of naked women and babies. They would tear the babies away from their mothers and smash them against trees. One eyewitness who managed to survive the fields said that the trees had hair and brains all over them from the guards doing this. At the center of the killing fields today, they have a beautiful monument built to preserve the skulls and remains that have been found of the victims of the killing fields. There were over 20 000 people killed there and within the monument they have 8000 skulls of the victims. They are arranged on levels depending on age and gender. As well they have various other bones they had found. Many of the skulls they found were lacking jaws or teeth because as torture they would pull teeth and blunt force would remove the jaw. Its almost sickening the things the people went through during these dark times in Cambodia.
So after some dark war and genocide history we headed to the local market. That definitely picked my mood up! I love shopping, and the shopping there was great! I picked some gifts up and some things for myself and had a time just walking around and checking their stuff out. We ended our tour by heading to the Royal Palace only to be turned away because both Aspen and I were wearing tank tops and shorts. Apparently you needed clothing that covered your shoulders and your knees.
We headed back to our hotel to drop our loot off and search for some food. We wanted to find the street vendor that we stumbled upon last night but he wasn't out yet so we grabbed some food from the mall. After we decided we want to shoot some guns, yes after all the war and terror we saw all day we decided that was a good idea. Since tuk tuks are so readily available we hopped in one and took off to the other side of town where the shooting range was. It absolutely blew my mind, not literally. You could shoot nearly any gun you wanted including a grenade launcher AND a rocket launcher! The grenade launcher was 60 dollars and for the cheap price of 350 dollars you could shoot a rocket launcher at the side of a mountain. Also you could throw grenades and shoot hand guns. Aspen and I decided to go with the AK-47, the M6 did have our attention too but it was the same price as the AK-47 and you got less bullets. Wow, talk about adrenaline rushes. My first pull of the trigger on that Ak-47 shocked me, it had quite the kick back. After shooting it one at a time, I'm not sure what that is called, the guy watching came over and switched my gun to automatic. He held my back while I laid on the trigger. It made it all happen so fast! I managed to hit the target quite a bit though, so that was nice. Afterwards we had a nice little photo shoot with all the different artillery they had laid out for display. Aspen managed to pose with the grenade launcher going the wrong way, good thing she didn't pay to do that today!
Our tuk tuk driver dropped us off at the Royal Palace because after we dropped our stuff off at the hotel we changed into proper attire. I was sweating twice as much in capris and a t shirt though. The Royal Palace was massive, we didn't even have the opportunity to go through the entire thing because the clouds were looking dangerous and we decided to head back to the hotel. Sorry my history knowledge of the palace is not up to speed, but I do have some pretty pictures!
Aspen and I power walked back to our hotel where we made it seconds before the rain started to pour. And wow it was the biggest rain I have seen in awhile. Currently the streets are nearly flooded with water right now, making me happy our room is three floors up. Although at first the stair climb was going to be the death of me. All the rain was scaring the critters inside our little internet cafe too, and as I was sitting here a big old rat ran in, right up to my bag. I pulled my feet up so fast and nearly drew blood from biting my tongue so hard to prevent myself from screaming, it noticed me moving and scampered off under the fridge. I'm sure its still hiding there along with the mouse that ran in right by me too! I guess I was asking for it by picking the computer right by the open door. So that was our fabulous day in Cambodia's capital city, one of the most exciting ones so far. Heading to Siem Reap tomorrow to check out Angkor Wat. Going to be really cool, anyways its getting to be supper time and the rain is slowing so we can search for some cheap street food. Hopefully no mice/rats come near me again cause I might let a scream out, those rodents really gross me out not going to lie. Dinner time, later skaters.
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