Tag Archives: pol pot

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and probably the beginning of the end of this trip. We took the bus from Saigon, which took about 6 hours. You kind of have to take the bus as you need to get your visa at the border, which was really badly handled by our bus company but we got in there anyways. It’s not a great city, Cambodia itself is very poor and Phnom Penh isn’t very different. There are hundreds of temples around the city but we saved ourselves for the Angkor temples further north at Siem Reap. Because of this, we only spent one night here in Phnom Penh. One thing I did notice about Phnom Penh is that the people here are nicer than the people in Vietnam. In the morning I went to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum which was right across the street from our hostel. Cambodia has an incredible history and the period in the seventies under the Khmer Rouge regime is particularly horrific. This era is highlighted in the Tuol Sleng museum. Originally a high school, it served as the Security Prison 21 (S-21) under Pol Pots reign. Around 20,000 people were imprisoned here in brutal conditions. Most were tortured, killed and then sent to the Killing Fields outside of the city. Most of the people imprisoned were cambodians but it also included thais, vietnamese, americans, british, new zealanders and australians. The prisoners were men, women and children. Continue reading →