Enough island - now it was time for a very interesting week in Cambodia.
First we went to Pnom Phen by the famous, but very very bad red roads of Cambodia.
Of course there was a little intermezzo at the border. We took of very early from Kho Chang, so we could reach Pnom Phen by evening. But at the border some guy was telling us, that the last bus had allready left, even though we were promised to go straight to Pnom Phen. So one night in a city I don't remember the name of... (But if we had read in your Lonely Planet, it wouldn't have been a surprise)
One night in this city... I bet half of the city production come from backpagger-fools like us.
Next day the long ride began (8 hours or something). To go this way, you have to cross the river 4 times. And that means no bridges only these wooden floading things, that can carry around 4 vehicles...
Everytime the minibus stops at a river-crossing you get attacked by kids wanting to sell you stuff. In Cambodia you pay with dollars, Thai-baht and the local currency... Oh shit, I forgot the name... But the american dollar is very popular. As soon as you go to tourist-places every price is written in dollars.
On the "ferry". Sverre is happy because it looks like he is going to survive one more time...
It was a long (and very hot) journey, and here some sleeping.
We found a hotel in Pnom Phen. The rooms sucked, but there was free beer for half an hour every night. We loved that.
The next day we wanted to do some historical stuff. Cambodia have some terrible stories to tell about the Khmer Rouge regime which is not even that long a go.
We went to the Killing fields near Pnom Phen. This area contains 129 mass graves from the Khmer Rouge period between 1975 and 1978. 86 of the graves are revealed and this memoral monument is build containing the skulls found in the graves.
The building is containing more than 8000 skulls, all executed in this period. Its really terrible to see all these people killed in a very inhumane way. And this is actually less than 30 years ago.
Layers and layers to make sure, this is never forgotten.
Around this place, bones can be seen half hidden in the ground from the around
17.000 people killed in the execution camp of Choeung Ek.
...
We hadn't got enough of the this scary Khmer Rouge history, so we went to the Tuol Sleng Museum, which is the former prison for the Khmer Rouge called S-21.
They liked to have everything in system, so all prisoners arriving to S-21 was fotographed. This is a pretty scary room with all these people looking at you. Only seven people where alive, when the vietnamese took over Pnom Phen in 1979.
Crazy stuff...
In these metalthings the prisoners feets were locked while lying close to each other on the floor.
...Okay enough terrible stuff. There is much more to tell about torture and killings in this prison, but I skip that.
Also on the countryside people were treated so badly. The Khmer Rouge wanted to destroy the structures of the society and make everyone equal (Except of course Pol Pot and the "right" Khmer Rouge people). They burned all the money notes, destroyed all the watches, and demanded all city-people to become farmers on move to the country-side. Because they had to pay the weapons to fight the vietnamese, the food was rationed and the people were starving. A lot of people died of hunger and others were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Between 1 and 3 million people died in this period. Today this can be seen in the fact, that 50% of the cambodian population is under the age of 15.
Pyyh after this eating cambodian food...
Well this was a dissapointment... Chicken with pineapples ment chickenbones with pineapples...