Back in Time....

Just thought I should fill in the blanks a little seeing as I am actually using this blog as a journal, being really lazy. But at 50 cents an hour for internet, I can write forever... ;)
So back to Saturday... I think I can remember back that far.
Friday night we had a bit of a party, it being our last build day and all, although it was a bit sad at the same time, it was a great night, and I think we all fell into bed around 1am, well those that lasted the distance anyway...
So hoping to have a lovely sleep in on Saturday, I was very upset to find myself wide awake at 7:30. So down to breakfast I went, as Julie was feeling very poorly and I thought I would let her recover in peace. Anyway I met Karen and Carl at brekkie so I tagged along with them for the morning. We first headed off to the Royal Palace, winding through the streets of Phnom Penh, I am so glad that Karen knew where we were going, coz I was totally lost. We got to the palace and it was amazing, it was an entire city within the city, although there was so much more gold inside the palace walls. It is amazing that it survived during the Cambodian civil war, or maybe it has been rebuilt since, I haven't done that much research on it yet so I'm not sure. Anyway, after the visit to the Palace, we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed south to the Russian Market. WOW!! It was a market. Full of those special market smells and craziness. Certainly not designed for westerners though, especially when you are carying a big back pack, I barely fit down the isles. The shopping was pretty decent though, 3 DVD's for $5, not to shabby, not sure of the quality though....
We had was was going to be a quick bite, but tuned into an hour, as the restaurant was indeed running on Cambodian time, and then we headed back to the hotel as we were off on a bit of a tour for the afternoon.
I was not really looking forward to the afternoon, and my fears were justified after the first 15 minutes of our visit to Toul Sleng, the former S21 prison of the Khmer Rouge regime. The records at the prison included photos taken by the Vietnamise army when they arrived in Phnom Penh, by that stage there were only a few prisoners left in the prison, and they had all been butchered by the retreating Khmer Rouge before they left, so as you could imagine the photos were quite greusome... The tour was amazing though, and it still amazes me that the people of Cambodia are so lovely, considering what they have had to live through, and to some extend still do. Anyway, from Toul Sleng we were off to the Killing Fields where something like 12,000 (not sure if that number is correct) sculls were uncovered, and as many again still remain in their mass graves as it is too difficult for the Cambodian people to face the reality of the numbers of people lost. Over all during the 5 years of occupation of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, over 3 million people were killed! It is really incomprehensible, especially when you hear that ex-Khmer Rouge generals are still walking the streets of Phnom Penh as free men, and others are getting paid lots of money from the likes of CNN to lie about thier stories!?!?
Anyway enough of the sad stuff. My next entry will be on happy times in Siem Reap!