Cambodia Recap Day 2

Starting the morning with some Soursop...Oh YEAH!!! Durian on the bed too...good mix.

So today was a mix of ups and downs. A great day of course, but we visited some spots
of Cambodia's ultra-violent past, so it wasnt exactly sunshine and lollipops all day.

As a cool little bonus, the daughter of the owner of where we stayed was getting married.
They had the ceremony downstairs and it was pretty vibrant.
Im not sure if it was an arranged wedding, but it seemed pretty possible.

Here Iris is with the sister of the bride:
This is the bridal party:


Pretty cool, eh? Looks like a NYC bike messenger.

Ok...so we were off on our tourist pursuits.

Stop #1 was Choeung Ek...otherwise known as "The Killing Fields".

I posted the wikipedia links for anyone wanting to learn more. I knew basically nothing of this horrific era in Cambodia's history, and Im basically dumbfounded how the American school system is so devoid of any information regarding it. What a joke.

Ive never come face to face with genocide. Ive never been to the concentration camps from WWII. My life has been pretty sheltered from violence and death.

When you walk into this area, you come upon this huge stupa filled with 5000 skulls of the executed individuals who were later removed from the mass graves.
Like a punch in face...there it was.
You can walk inside and look at them..no glass separating you from the horror.

I kept getting these tingling chills down my spine.
Even writing about it now, Im getting the feelings again.

And what I thought was REALLY screwed up was that people were actually
taking pictures in front of the skulls. And some ladies were actually SMILING.
IM NOT KIDDING. WHAT HAS HUMANITY COME TO?

Where the hell is the respect and decency?

All the pics of this are from Iris, I was not in the mood to be taking pics.

So after that, we walked around the excavated mass graves. There was a guide talking about how everything happened there, and to keep this post relatively non-stomach-wrenching Ill leave it out. There was this tree there which was used to kill children (yes...CHILDREN...use your imagination or read about it) and of course the cameras were in full effect.
Here I am, crying...and people are taking pictures of this tree. What the hell is going on here?
I just couldnt believe the lack of respect.

This is me discovering part of a human leg bone on the ground. Real enough for you?
There are still old clothes around, and bones everywhere. My spine is tingling right now.

Yeah...pretty tough for me. So after this we were off to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.
Ah...reality.


(Dont worry...I dont think anyone is going to smile here.)

Almost everyone killed at the Killing Fields were previously tortured here.

There are mugshots of all the prisoners on the walls, and you see the terror in their eyes.
Out of almost 20,000 people that were brought here, I think something like 14 survived, and only because they were the last ones there when Phnom Penh fell in '79.

This is so much to digest. You walk through the actual interrogation rooms. You see pictures of what happened in the room you are standing in. You see blood stains on the floor.
You think your life is tough? Do you want to complain some more about your job?


Whats really messed up is that most of the guards and torturers were very young men, in their early teens. Brainwashed by the Khmer Rouge to carry out these acts.

And whats even MORE disturbing is that many of the torturing practices that they used are the same ones that (were? are?) used in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Electric wires, waterboarding...ponder that for a while. Want to keep paying taxes?



So we were there for while, but I had just about enough. Time to go.

We checked in to our new hotel (Really nice...and only $33 a night) and then headed for our next massage. One hour of foot, one hour body. Still, the thoughts of what I just saw were still in my head. I have no right to be sad about anything in my life. We all have so much to be thankful for and most of us just bitch and whine. We have no idea how hard it can be.
Sorry to be such a downer, but its the truth. Please be grateful for EVERYTHING.

After the massage, we went for dinner. I did lots of spicy salads like mango, green
papaya and pomelo (grapefruit). They would put peppers and nuts in it, and it was great.

After dinner we just walked along the river. Lots of people were out...mostly locals.
Most tourists were drinking it up or eating...there really isnt much else to do in Phnom Penh at night. HOWEVER...we wandered across these crazy kids who were doing a drum circle and break-dancing right in the park. It was AWESOME. Some were doing backflips!

So I ended up doing some handstands with them and dancing a little bit.
I grabbed one by the hands and swung him around and everyone else wanted me to do the same with them. It doesnt seem like kids get much attention here.


They were really loving it. And pretty soon everyone was watching.
People need to get a life, I swear...just a bunch of observers...no one doing much.
We had the best time with these kids, and it cost absolutely nothing. This is REAL fun.

Such a great unexpected bonus.
Be open to the randomness.

Off to Siam Reap and Angkor Wat via boat in the morning...so its an early bedtime.

2 for 2 so far...really good days.