cambodia
choeung ek
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phnom penh
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silver pagoda
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tuol sleng
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CAM to the BO to the D-I-A: Phnom Penh
I have finally uploaded my photos from my trip to Cambodia back in December last year! Whahaha.. 8 months late but better late than never =p
I have always wanted to visit places in the Southeast Asia like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos etc.. Have been to Vietnam on a staff retreat but am certain I can go back there again to see more! Same for Cambodia - I want to visit its other less well-known places like Sihanoukville which is well known for its beaches with a sea-side town.
Next on my list though are definitely Myanmar and Laos (in no particular order), but I am DYING to visit Myanmar so prolly Myanmar first before Laos if I can help it haha. Otherwise, either one will do!
Other places that I really wanna tick off my list includes India and Sri Lanka. And when I have enough money.. ICELAND!!! Too bad my closest friends are the unadventurous sort and would not accompany me to India and/or Sri Lanka :( my adventurous friends have already been there done that! Le sigh.
Nonetheless, I have to shelve any travelling plans for the year 'cept for the family year-end trip cos I have to save save save for Melbourne next year! I need to buck up a bit on the saving part lol.
Anyways enough rambling. Here's a quick photo summary of what I did in Phnom Penh! I spent about 2 days there and it is like super dusty... pro-tip: hire a taxi or a driver to bring you around instead of booking a tuktuk because the roads are so super dusty! And if you doze off in a tuktuk you risk falling off entirely onto the road - especially after a super early morning flight.
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| Jetting off on an early Christmas morn! |
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| One of my travelling companions - Jocelyn Orange Hor |
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| My other travelling buddies - the oddball couple Andrea moo and GL |
Checking into our guest house at No. 9
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| Getting into our tuktuk of the day - DO NOT follow in our footsteps! |
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| Our first visit of the day - the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum |
From wikipedia: The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill". Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country, and as many as 20,000 prisoners there were killed.
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| Right near the entrance is a courtyard filled with graves I presume of those who were discovered dead at the torture centre after the fall of Pol Pot's regime |
Wiki: When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of ten rules that they were to follow during their incarceration. What follows is what is posted today at the Tuol Sleng Museum; the imperfect grammar is a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer:
- 1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
- 2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- 3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- 5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- 6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- 7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- 8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
- 9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
- 10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
During testimony at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on April 27, 2009, Duch claimed the 10 security regulations were a fabrication of the Vietnamese officials that first set up the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved as they were left when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 17,000 prisoners who passed through the prison.
The site has four main buildings, known as Building A, B, C, and D. Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B holds galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms sub-divided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.
Other rooms contain only a rusting iron bedframe, beneath a black and white photograph showing the room as it was found by the Vietnamese. In each photograph, the mutilated body of a prisoner is chained to the bed, killed by his fleeing captors only hours before the prison was captured. Other rooms preserve leg-irons and instruments of torture. They are accompanied by paintings by former inmate Vann Nath showing people being tortured, which were added by the post-Khmer Rouge regime installed by the Vietnamese in 1979.
OH GOD SOUNDS SO DEPRESSING RIGHT. More to come. But first, we broke out of the depression for lunch!
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| space is not a problem on a bike in Cambodia! |
Anyway, if you have no idea why Phnom Penh has this genocidal history, it is because of one man by the name of Pol Pot and his followers who formed a communist party to drive all the urbanites from the city to the countryside to engage them in a agricultural revolution - known as the Khmer Rouge. Along the way, many people either died from starvation or were overworked to death. The sense of suspicion of traitors within the communist party was very strong. Once you were suspected of trying to go against the party, they would summon you and your entire family and anyone else remotely affiliated to you into questioning chambers such as the Tuol Sleng and eventually you would be forced into confession for crimes you never commit from the torture. Most people eventually died from the torture or were executed en masse.
Hope that was a succinct history lesson for you! Haha. If you would like to read up more you can visit the wiki page on Khmer Rouge here. I was really intrigued by Pol Pot and his ideals behind this whole communist revolution and execution that I bought a political biography of him to read. It was a pirated book which I got for USD4 haha. He ended up with quite a sad death...
Anyway, after lunch was our second depressing pit stop of the day - the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.
Choeung Ek, the site of a former orchard and mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge - killed between 1975 and 1979 - about 17 km south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed over one million[1] people between 1975 and 1979. Mass graves containing 8,895 bodies were discovered at Choeung Ek after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many of the dead were former political prisoners who were kept by the Khmer Rouge in their Tuol Sleng detention center.
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| Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa. The stupa has acrylic glass sides and is filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. Some of the lower levels are opened during the day so that the skulls can be seen directly. Many have been shattered or smashed in.
I didn't take many photos here cos it was simply depressing - massive areas of graves were dug up consisting of thousands of bones from the people that were executed here, including those of children and even infants. There was also a special spot where babies were smashed against a tree and you could still see the bloody marks of it. Bones get surfaced constantly especially after it rains. The "killing fields" was a very apt name for this place.
After these two depressing places we went to explore some markets of Phnom Penh. Loads of food stalls littered the streets though we didn't try any of it (GL damn hum and scared of food poisoning). There was also a big market somewhat similar to chatuchak where they sold stuff ranging from clothes to shoes to household ware to jewellery and even furniture. Lots of polo tees and branded bags imitation too. As I wasn't there to shop I didn't buy anything much except for a tee which I needed cos I didn't bring enough tops LOL. GL bought a North Face haversack which I wasn't sure if it was an imitation or not but it was pretty cheap compared to original prices soooooo....
Make shift stalls were also set up along the roads peddling local produce, meat and seafood. I even saw a stall selling condiments.
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We ended our first day in Phnom Penh at a local eating place which served a mix of Western and Khmer food. We all had a burger each and some fries. The burgers were very reminiscent of those school canteen home made burgers.
Our second day in Phnom Penh consisted of visits to the National Museum and the Royal Palace!
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| Selfie at brekkie |
Frolicking around the roof terrace of our guest house which happens to be just outside our room
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| What is a holiday without a jump shot! |
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| The Independence Monument signifying Cambodia's independence from the French |
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| Passing by the Singapore Embassy |
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| Impressed by my own artistic skills of this shot LOL |
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| Buttons on display |
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| More jump shots! |
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| National Museum of Cambodia |
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| Adjourned for lunch at Friends restaurant after museum visit! |
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| The only dessert we had the entire trip? |
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| Happy people with happy tummies |
About the restaurant
Friends the Restaurant is a training restaurant run by former street youth and their teachers.
To help Mith Samlanh's hospitality students gain practical skills and prepare them for employment, we operate so called training restaurants. In Phnom Penh, Romdeng, (#74, Street 174) has been designed to promote Cambodian culture and food, while at Friends the Restaurant (#215, Street 13) students are trained in Asian and Western cooking.
The focus of this training is building self-esteem, self-respect, very high standards of hygiene and of course, hospitality skills. When the students have finished their training, we help them to find jobs. We are grateful to all the businesses that offer employment opportunities to our students. There is nothing greater than to see them working independently either in their own business or in one of the many eateries around town. If you would like to support us (by hiring our graduates, giving donations, ideas, suggestions, or comments) please ask our restaurant staff or contact us via email.
All profits from our restaurants are reinvested into Mith Samlanh's projects for former street children and youth.
Go eat at the restaurant if you ever visit Phnom Penh! Food is pretty decent.
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| The Royal Palace - where they were mourning the recent passing of their former King |
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| Lines of mourners |
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| Sneaking a photo with the palace guard |
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| Visiting the Silver Pagoda, we saw a miniature structure of the Angkor Wat in Siem Reap |
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| Back on the tuktuk again for a short ride after the Silver Pagoda tour |
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| Dinner at Veiyo Tonle - very much similar to the Friends restaurant. Not for profit etc etc kinda establishment |
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| Very happy with my cheap mojito |
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| Royal Palace by night |
That brings me to the end of my post on Phnom Penh. No wonder people visit Siem Reap more cos it's really just a very depressing place. Although I am not a history or political buff, visiting all the killing fields really piqued my interest and I found it so interesting to read up on what happened in the past in Cambodia.
Next up will be on my visit to Siem Reap where I can finally die in peace after visiting Angkor Wat and the other Angkor temples.
By the way if you have some spare cash lying around and don't know what to spend them on, you may shop my wardrobe here! Lol. Brand new and pre-loved items for sale. Help to fund my studies in Melbourne next year! :D
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