What I love about Asia is, no two cities are the same and Phnom Penh is no exception.
After leaving Siem Reap and seeing how different it was from anywhere else we had been, we had no idea what to expect from the capital. While I must admit Phnom Penh is slightly dirtier than Siem Reap, there is definitely more life to it.
The main reason that I wanted to head into Cambodia was to go and see the Angkor complexes, we hadn’t intended on spending to long in Phnom Penh. The main reason we chose to stop here, was to break up our travelling days between Siem Reap and Saigon.
We got off the bus in Phnom Penh and naturally it was pouring with rain so we jumped in the closest tuk-tuk to get to our hostel. We stayed in Happy House Hostel, which was well located and reasonably priced with easy access to plenty of bars and restaurants.
After a long bus ride, all you really want to do is chill and not do really over exert yourself. We found out that there were night markets not to far from our hostel so we decided to head there and try some of the local cuisine. Unfortunately what we presumed was ‘beef’ turned out to be buffalo, which tastes as appealing as it sounds.
The selection of street food at the market
John enjoying his buffalo
While in Phnom Penh, I found out that my friend Holly from the UK had recently moved there. They were in charge of extending the tour company that her and her boyfriend are directors of, Tru Travels.
We met up with Holly for a few beers and to find out what’s good to do while visiting the city.
The Khmer Rouge Killing Fields
The reason we love to travel is because while travelling you are constantly getting an education. The pair of us received our educations in the UK and Australia, each in our respective countries, and we couldn’t believe how ignorant we were in regards to history throughout the East.
To think, that barely 30 years after World War 2 there had been a full-blown genocide and that neither of us, had hardly any knowledge about it was appalling.
Getting to the Killing Fields is reasonably simple, most hostels offer tours which is basically just the transport from your hostel, the killing fields, onwards to S-12 and then back to the hostel.
A little background on the genocide. Between 1975-1979 the political party in power was the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot at its head. Pol Pot was the General Secretary of the Communist Party before his rise to leader of the country, where he implemented harsh policies while promoting the communist prerogative.
While in power, Pol Pot had relocated all urban citizens out to rural areas. Citizens who had ties with the pre-revolution government, were well-educated, teachers or was bilingual were practically all taken to these killing fields and executed to maintain the communist revolution.
It is believed that over two million Cambodians lost their lives during the genocide that the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were responsible for. The killing fields themselves were not far from the city and the location housed countless mass graves where to this day remains are still being found.
The brutality of the Khmer Rouge was unparalleled to any dictator since Hitler. Pol Pot manipulated youth from the rural areas into believing that, the reason they were poor was because of these educated people. It was a culmination of poor sanitation, working conditions and outright murder which raised the death toll so high during this time.
Map of the Killing Fields, Phnom Pehn.
Bullets were too expensive to waste on the victims, the Khmer Rouge was resourceful in this regard and beat their victims to death with basic farming tools, cutting their throats with sugar cane stems and using toxic gases before throwing them into a mass grave.
The Killing Fields was quite a solemn experience but one that should be experienced to educate people, even after World War 2, which was one of the most heinous crimes against humanity, we cannot let these dictators who drive on hated and fear mongering gain power again.
Not far from the Killing Fields was s-21 (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was originally a high school for locals of Phnom Penh. During the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pots regime it was converted into a security prison and torture facility.
Walking into S-21, it looked like it could be any school, but this one was a location where many people lost their lives. Each room had its windows removed and replaced with metal bars, barbed wire on entrances and classrooms had been converted into interrogation rooms, for anyone who had information on a potential military coup to overthrow the Khmer Rouge.
Barbed wire covered the prison to prevent any escapes
During their time spent in the prison, many prisoners died through not only torture but also malnutrition, lack of hygiene and countless diseases.
Under the tyranny of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, many women were forced into marriage. Numbers of the Cambodian population had to be replenished due to the genocide and to refusal to accept the marriage often resulted in death.
Quote from an anonymous woman in regards to her forced marriage.
To this day, many marriages still stand and in some cases the women who were forced into marriage, still cannot escape.
Like the Killing Fields, the S-21 is definitely a site that should be on anyones list when visiting Phnom Penh.
During our time in South-East Asia, one of the things that really made an impact on us was how blatant the exploitation of women is, in regards to the sex industry.
We didn’t fully comprehend until arriving in Asia, how blatant it was. The bar girls, the massage parlours, brothel workers, ping-pong performers and in some cases children, are mostly the product of human trafficking and it is constantly staring you in the face.
I read a book called Sex Slaves by Louise Brown, which I highly recommend to anyone who has any interest in this issue. The author explains that all throughout Asia, women and young girls, are bought, sold, traded and blatantly tricked into becoming sex slaves. Whether it’s from a procurer from the brothels, themselves looking for a better life or even their own parents, who can not afford to feed them.
This is why Daughters of Cambodia is such a wonderful and necessary organisation. It is a Church run charity, which can offer support, workshops, counselling, education and safety for the women who have been subjected to this life, when they should have been protected from it.
On the site there is a cafe where you can have a bite of lunch and a shop, where all the products are made from the women who have learned a trade and all proceeds made go to the organisation to help get more victims out of the industry.
Phnom Penh was a great city to explore. The food was mostly amazing, we learned a lot and got to catch up with a friend on the other side of the world. We were there for only 4 days but could have spent another week, next stop Saigon.
Khmer Capitol What I love about Asia is, no two cities are the same and Phnom Penh is no exception.
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