Phnom Phen

After Krattie we returned to Phnom Phen. In total we spent about 2 days. We did the usual walk around the city seeing the classic independence monuments and royal palace etc. The most interesting and depressing thing we did was go to both the S1 and killing field museums. I was aware before coming to Cambodia about a civil war about 30 years ago, apparently we were both completely ignorant to the extent of the genocide that had took place during and after the civil war, after the Vietnamese war. I won't go into too much detail with the risk of it sounding like a history lesson and many of the things we saw we didn't feel right taking pictures as we our guide lived through this and had lost half of her family as a result.
Long story short the S1 museum had been turned into a concentration camp where any person deemed to have an education was tortured usually until death because they were possibly US or Russian spies. If they didn't die there they would be transported to a 'new home' (the killing fields) where they were killed. As guns were too expensive it was usually by spade/pick axe/rough leaf or wood edge. In total 3 million people died in 5 years. Two million actively killed and another million be starvation or similar. This was over a quarter of the entire population of Cambodia.
Very educational but not the nicest place to go. The pictures show just some of the remains they have found from the killing fields, the prison and one of the 'rooms' the victims slept in.Read more