Cambodia: Phnom Penh

Today was chock full of sights! We started early and made our way to the Royal Palace. Most of the palace was closed because the King's father died in November and his coffin is in there. We did get to visit the silver pagoda and walk a lot of the grounds. The silver pagoda had a floor made of solid silver. My guide told me that over two tons of silver can be found inside! In the pagoda itself try had several old Buddha statues and other artifacts. There was a big Buddha made of solid gold that had over 2000 diamonds decorating it.

We continued walking around the palace grounds and then got in the car to drive out 15 km southwest of town to the killing fields. There is a genocide monument there that houses thousands of skulls and other bones. We walked around the grounds, read more about what happened there, and watched a short documentary about the Pol Pot regime. The whole thing was so surreal. As I first got out of the car, you could hear the sound of children playing (there was a school next door to the field). As I walked around where tens of thousands of people were summarily executed and buried, the sounds of children playing and laughing was the only sound... There was a tree they called the killing tree where they would bash babies against to kill and then toss in a nearby pit. According to one witness, the trunk of the tree was covered in blood, brains, and hair. Over 2 million people were reported missing or dead in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979).

Our next stop was the main prison (S-21) in Phnom Penh during that time. It was a converted high school, where the Khmer Rouge tortured and interrogated tens of thousands of people before sending the survivors off to the killing fields for execution. I met one of the survivors who was in the prison when Cambodia was liberated in 1979, who was at the prison selling his book which recounts what he went through.

After that, we went to a restaurant on the river for lunch. After lunch, it was a short walk to the National Museum, which had a very impressive collection of Khmer and Buddhist artifacts. Some of the statues were amazing as were many of the bas reliefs. After spending a lot of time looking at every single piece in the museum, we headed back to the hotel for a little downtime. After resting up a bit, I caught a tuc tuc back towards the national museum to a massage place that came highly recommended and had an incredible massage. After my massage, the sun was setting, so I walked along the Mekong for a bit and then grabbed another tuc tuc back to the hotel where I had room service. After so much Asian food, I was craving pizza!

After that I got all packed up as we are leaving early in the morning for Siem Reap, the last stop on this first leg of my trip!