Phnom Penh

Amy currently reading: 'The Girl in the Picture' Denise Chong
Gem currently reading: 'The Constant Gardener' John le Carre
Both currently listening to: Amy version (on repeat) of Rob Thomas

The next place we visited was Phnom Penh which had a particularly somber tone to it since we spent our time learning about the atrocities of what happened to the Cambodian people during and after the Civil War. We visited the S-21 prison which was a high school before being turned into a security prison for people supposedly against the regime. These people are the ones that didn't fit the stereotype - people who had lived in urban areas, had an education, wore glasses, followed a different religion...men, women and children.

They were taken to the prison, tortured until they signed their name to a list of crimes and most of them were then executed. The executions took place at the killing fields and the bodies were buried in mass graves. What's now left is a field with big holes where the bodies were found and signs up to explain what was discovered and where, a cabinet full of the skulls and all the clothes they retrieved. There is still a large section of land which potentially has more graves that has not yet been uncovered.

On the more positive side of Phnom Penh, we were picked up from the bus station by a straight faced Sloth lookalike (from the Goonies...Chunk's friend!? anyone a fan? http://ilovetheworld.co.uk/images/goonies.jpg ), we ran into John, Chris, Jim and Charlie who we had met in Siem Reap, went for dinner with them and they were meeting another couple called Anna and AJ, turns out I went on a french work experience with Anna in sixth form! Amy ate sunday roast, we both ate ice cream, we met an excellent Cambodian moto driver who thought everything was hilarious and didn't stop laughing for the whole journey, we discovered hammocks and incense that kills mosquitos so they don't eat you alive in the night. Oh, and we bartered the tuk tuk driver who took us to the killing fields down from $15 to $7...we are getting good at this :)

We have also found out that Amy is a Climacophobic- has fear of stairs, climbing, or of falling downstairs....

See ya!