Cambodia - Phnom Phen

After an amazing few days in Siem Reap, I was brought down to earth while learning about the history of Cambodia. During school in history lessons we never covered any Asian history, I guess there is not enough time throughout school to learn every countries history, so it shocked me the extreme pain and struggle the country has been through. During the 1970's Cambodia was ruled by a nasty dictator called Polpot and the Khmer Rouge. Anyone who he thought was a threat or he didn't like he would kill or send to a labour camp. This went on for 5 years. No one in Cambodia could get in or out of the country. People lived in awful conditions and if they weren't killed by a Khmer Rouge solider they died of starvation, diarrhoea, malaria or something else. Over 2 million Cambodians died over a quarter of their population. I read this great book "First they killed my father" that gave me a huge insight to what went on.

While in Phnom Phen, the capital of Cambodia I went to the filling fields. This is one of the sights where people were taken to be executed. They found huge mass graves. Some of these graves have been left in peace while others have been excavated. In the middle of these fields a memorial has been built to house many remains. As you walk around the sight you could listen to a very informative audio guide.

After the killing fields I went to Tuol Sleng the Genocide Museum also know as S21. it used to be a school but was turned in to a prison where they kept and tortured innocent people. Parts of the prison have been untouched and being in those cramped dark places where people were kept was very moving and hard to comprehend. On the walls throughout the rooms there were pictures of many prisoners who came through the doors and died.

My time in Cambodia made me think a lot about the human race and what people can do when in power. I hope that we can all learn from history and let it not repeat it's self. I think its very important to learn about what happened in countries such as Cambodia so we don't treat humans like this every again.

Phnom Phen didn't have much else to offer as a city. There was a lovely night market of which I found deep fried Oreos apart from that the city was a bit of a disappointment. Therefore it was time to head back to Bangkok.