Phnom Penh

On the bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh I met a lad from England (Paul) who had similar plans to mine. We both checked into a funky little guesthouse called Top Banana that was on the fourth floor and away from the craziness below. We decided to visit the Tuol Sleng museum of genocide which was used by the Khmer Rouge under former Cambodian leader Pol Pot. His idea was to restart civilaisation in a 'year zero' which invloved the killing of over 2.5million Cambodian people. The museum site is a former high school that Khmer Rouge used as the security prison (S21) to torture innocent Cambodian people before taking them off to be executed in the killing fields. This place was eerie. The tour of the prison took you to the small classrooms that were used as torture chambers and showed horiffic pictures on the walls. Blood stains were still clearly evident on the walls and floor. Enough said. Our guide had lost 3 family members during the Pol Pot regime so it was a rather and interesting yet depressing tour.

The next day we headed for the killing fields in Choeung Ek. Another pretty depressing day but it was definetly worse seeing. Its hard to imagine how brutal the Khmer Rouge were in killing innocent Vietnamese.

I spent my next couple of days in Phnom Penh doing a whole lot of not much. Relaxig by the pool with some smoothies and then beers & poker by night time with the Top Banana crew.
I didn't take too many photos in Phnom Penh so this blog is a touch on the boring side.

The guard dog for Top Banana guesthouse!


The logo.......