There are not many things to keep you busy at night in Phnom Penh, but by day there are a few breathtaking sights to see. First we visited the Killing Fields, where Cambodians were sent to their death, by the truck load. Sometimes up to a hundred a day. At first glance it comes across as a beautiful and tranquil place, that is until you see the monument and read the plaques. The scripts on the plaques tell the tragic story of the killings, and the monument displays hundreds of the victims skulls along with some of their clothes.
When you visit the S 21 prison, you begin to comprehend the brutality of what went on. This is definitely the most shocking thing we have ever seen. You walk around the prison (which was converted from a school) and see the many torture and detention rooms, which still contain weapons and blood stains. You also witness the small cells they were locked up in. The most graphic part was seeing the display of photographs of the victims. The photos showed head shots of all the detainees, some old, some young and some still cradled in their mothers arms. There were some photos showing the prisoners after they had been tortured, some even when they were dead.
On a slightly lighter note the views of the Royal Palace were lovely and very grand. We also visited a shooting range where you got to buy your own bullets for whatever gun you wanted, it was absolutely mental and completely surreal. Kim got to have a go with the James Bond hand gun and both Greg and Kim fired a machine gun. The machine gun was brilliant if not a little scary. To top it all off we bought a hand grenade. After a short briefing greg reluctantly pulled the pin and threw the grenade into a pond. The explosion shook the ground like an earthquake... We couldn't believe they let you do such things.
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