Reflection, food & beer

Visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum first. It is so hard to understand how this could happen in our lifetime - it was all so brutal & cruel. 12000 - 20000 imprisoned, tortured and brutally killed at this site alone. Heartbreaking to hear parts of the testimony of the brother of Kelly Hamill - a New Zealander imprisoned tortured and killed together with British man John Dawson Dewhirst. They were captured after their yacht drifted into Cambodian waters during a round the world sailing trip within days of Pol Pot coming to power. We spent about 4 hours walking around with an audio tour and we're thankful that we were not on a guided tour being rushed through. Came back to the hotel, showered & read a little more on the circumstances leading up to the Khmer Rouge taking power.

Found a restaurant a short walk away, recommended on trip advisor, so headed there. Lovely place - sitting in the garden to eat. They are committed to using local food in season and not using plastic - bamboo straws, filtered water served in a glass etc. Food was good too. We then had a cache to find - in a beer garden! Found the place and bought some expensive beers - Paul had a large Road Trip & I had half a French Kiss. Had to ask the barman for a bucket of water to retrieve the cache as one of these in a tube that needs water to make it float - also had holes in the tube so while Paul plugged the holes, the barman held a torch and caught the cache whilst I poured the water - a bit of fun at the end of the day. On the walk back to the hotel there were lots of balloon sellers at the side of the road - looked quite pretty illuminated with little lights. Then we saw one being filled with butane gas (unless the container was labelled incorrectly as do not think butane is lighter than air?). We did not hang around to find out.Read more