We have arrived in Cambodia a place with a terrible recent history, year 0 and Pol Pot. Everything here is priced in US Dollars and that is preferred to their own currency. We are staying in a very nice 11 month old hotel in the centre on Phnom Phen. We arrived on the outskirts of the city in the pouring rain and had to get our things in to Tuk Tuks and race off.
The hotel No 9 has bars on three floors and 'happy hour' from 4pm to 9pm!! The museum and Royal Palace are fantastic albeit the heat and humidity slow you down as you look around. Plenty of stops at big air fans. The heavens opened as we neared the end of our trip to the palace and we had to dive in to the nearest Tuk Tuk which would not start and was pushed up the road by other drivers.
Our second day started with a visit to S21, the main building used by Pol Pot to torture people into confessing they were spies before killing them and all their families. S21 is kept exactly as it was and is a terrible place that must be seen. The regime obviously learnt a lot from the Nazis.
From S21 we went out of town by Tuk Tuk to the 'Killing Fields' (Choeng Ek). This is exactly what it was. People were taken here and killed in the most disgusting ways, a written description cannot conjure up the feel of the place or the piles of human skulls.great, full of smiles . We are now moving on again to Batambang.
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