We're in Cambodia!

Hello again everyone! We safely arrived in Phnom Penh on tuesday afternoon. We were picked up from the airport by a "tuk-tuk" (a motorbike with a brightly coloured trailer on the back) and our driver was lovely, really smiley and pleased to see us. The drive from the airport was brilliant fun in the back of this thing. We got to the Sunday guest house in one piece and were warmly welcomed and shown to a very comfy room.
After settling in we decided to go for a little walk and just to get our bearings and see what to expect of the capital city. Cambodia gives a litle bit of mixed impression on the first day, the way from the airport was littered with new buildings and forthcoming projects, however you immediatley see that it is a very poor country. Our hotel is in the middle of the city and yet the road to it is little more than a gravel track. The people are just amazing, so friendly and polite and speak excellent english - I'm very impressed.
Any way back to the walk. When we landed in Phnom penh our tiny little economy flight plane was driven over to banners and enormous photos of important looking people. Then loads of people approached the plane with TV cameras, very offical looking men with people running along side them carrying umberellas and photographers (they'd obviously been informed we were coming!), then loads of very smart, suited men got up from the back of the plane and got off! After the excitement died down we didn't really pay much attention. So we went on this walk of the city to see the Independance Monument, we realised something was amis when a very busy road suddenly became deathly quiet and there were loads of police and other uniformed people creating a road block. We quickly saw what the cause of all this was, there was some sort of ceremony going on at the monument with the very same poeple we'd seen get off the plane! So after having a good nose we went up to the next monument, which symbolised peace between Cambodia and Vietnam. There was this band setting up in white uniforms and red carpet, just as we were trying to get out of there we got stuck. Loads of very posh black cars with tinted windows turned up, they even had a police escort! We were trying to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible but the police were frantically trying to move us out of the way! So off we went, we never did find out what was going on.
Back at the Hotel we booked a trip to the killing fields for the following day, during dinner that night the film was put on- it's really sad and almost puts you off going. However it's one of those things that you have to do and we were up early the next morning and ready for the bus.
There were six of us in the mini bus and we started off on time ( a nice change from Vietnam!) The city very quickly changes from wide roads and big buildings to dusty,red tracks and shacks. The road once out of the city can't even really be described as a road, cows, children.chickens and dogs wander across it and you quickly regret eating breakfast! However there is a real sense of adventure to it and you realise how spoilt we are in Britain. We weren't immediatley taken to the killing fields though, a rather interesting detour was made to a shooting range. The experiance is just surreal. You get provided with a "menu" of all the guns you can shoot and how much it costs. There are handguns, machine guns, hand grenades and you can even shoot a rocket launcher for $200! (We were both tempted by that!). All of our group declined and sat around having a chat. We were approached by a Cambodian guy who was shocked we didn't want a go. he was quite a character, he asked the English guy in our group where he was from, and when England was the answer he said "oh lubbley jubbley!" Then he asked us "you wanna shoot cow?" No thanks if it's all the same to you! Then we were back on our way on the bone jarring bus. We soon arrived at the killing fields and went in. The first thing you come to is the monument containing eight thousand skulls, they are arranged by age and sex. You then go round the field itself and see mass graves (not all have been exhumed) there are pieces of clothing still sticking out of the ground. I don't think you can put into words the feelings that you experiance at a place like this. It is just shocking to think what occured in this peaceful, shady orchard just a few decades ago. It is very moving and makes you admire the Cambodian poeple who appear to hold no grudges for the atrocites carried out here.
The rest of Wednesday was spent chiliing out and reading on the hotel balcony out of the relentless sun. It is incredibly hot here, even more so than vietnam. Unfortunatley, Thursday was another depressing day as we went to see Tuol Sleng, or S-21. This is the prison which people were brought to once arrested to be tortured and sent on to the killing fields for execution. They spare you nothing here and rightly so. The prison was an ex-highschool and from the outside looks quite normal. You see tiny cells and torture implements and equipment, you get very graphic descriptipns of what occured here. The worst thing though is the photographs. The Kymer Rouge were very thorough in documenting what happened, so every prisoner was photographed when they arrived. Their faces are haunting, they know what the future holds. Many women are pictured with there babies, there was no mercy for children, however tiny. Some faces look at you with defiance and grim determination, it's quite overwhelming. There are photos of people during and after torture. These images, if you can bear to look, stay with you.
We left there feeling thoroughly depressed and decided to visit the Russian market for some retail therapy. Then it was back to the hotel to escape the heat.
Today has been much more cheerful. We walked to the Phnom Wat temple which is on the top of a hill. Its a really beautiful place, very busy. They have monkeys in the grounds which are so cute and comical, we even saw one admiring its reflection in a piece of broken mirror!
It's off to Siem Riep tomorrow for a week to see the temples of Angkor Wat and we can't wait. Catch up with you soon!

We're in Cambodia!

Phnom Penh, Cambodia