A 1 hour hop from Bangkok to here then a 1 hour taxi ride ($10 US) & we arrive at our hotel which is fine.First day in we thought that we would see the Royal Palace, just up the road but we were not dressed up enough for it so we spent a very interesting time in the National Museum next door which was packed with articles from Angkor Wat both pre & post the conversion of the Khmer kingdom from Hindu to predominantly Buddhist. There was also quite a lot of finds & information from its iron/bronze age a 1000 years previous to this. The Khmer food is similar to that of Thailand without the injection of chillies although generally in Thailand the food was toned down to western tastes so extra chillies were called for by me.
Our second day was much more sombre as we visited the Genocide Museum which is in a primary school which became S-21 Interrogation Centre used by the Khmer Rouge between 1975-9. It has been preserved as it was at the time Something like 15,000 men,women & children were "processed" here , the general concensus being that only 14 or so survived. The process consisted of photographing them and keeping them in a mixture of cells ( some a tiny 0.8 x 2 mtrs) between torture sessions until they confessed to whatever crime against the regime that they were accused of e.g being intellectual . Once they confessed they were taken to the killing fields for execution . I wondered when seeing the methods they used whether they learned "waterboarding" from the americans or vice versa. The enormity of this is that S-21 was one of many centres that resulted in 25% of the population dying while the world looked on.
Our second day was much more sombre as we visited the Genocide Museum which is in a primary school which became S-21 Interrogation Centre used by the Khmer Rouge between 1975-9. It has been preserved as it was at the time Something like 15,000 men,women & children were "processed" here , the general concensus being that only 14 or so survived. The process consisted of photographing them and keeping them in a mixture of cells ( some a tiny 0.8 x 2 mtrs) between torture sessions until they confessed to whatever crime against the regime that they were accused of e.g being intellectual . Once they confessed they were taken to the killing fields for execution . I wondered when seeing the methods they used whether they learned "waterboarding" from the americans or vice versa. The enormity of this is that S-21 was one of many centres that resulted in 25% of the population dying while the world looked on.
Chilling stuff. You have certainly had a wide range of experiences on this trip. Thanks for sharing them. love to you both xxx
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