As I sat on a patio a few minutes ago, sipping my second mango shake of a very hot afternoon, I was very conscious of how lucky I am. Since we arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday we've watched a depressing pack of small children continually roam up and down the broken sidewalks, rushing past in their ripped t-shirts and filthy bare feet, emploring tourists to buy postcards or a guidebook. I now have more postcards then I can cram in my backpack, and because I have moments of extreme cheapness at the thought of the postage cost, most of them will remain unsent. A little boy barely taller than the shrubbery that separated the patio bar from the sidewalk, poked his head and hand through to us a couple minutes ago and asked in broken English for some money. And then there's the sex tourism industry. With disturbing frequency we see young Cambodian women wander past on the arm of a fat, old Westerner. I shudder in horror and attempt to imagine what sort of life has forced them to prostitution, but know I can't even begin to imagine.
If all of that wasn't depressing enough, we visited the Killing Fields of Cheuk Elk this morning. (I'm sure I've just spelled that wrong, but currently without my guidebook.) About 20 minutes outside of Phnom Penh, the small property was once an orchard, but for a period of 3-4 years in the late 70's it was a concentration camp where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge. As you enter the camp there's a large monument in the center, which houses the skulls of hundreds of victims. Placed on top of each other, in a series of shelves, the skulls are labelled by sex and approximate age and form a tower of disturbing proportions. You can walk right around the shelves, and many of the glass partitions are open, so if you disobeyed the signs, you could actually touch them. A heap of clothes found in the camp lay at the base of the tower of skulls, ragged, worn, and stained. Throughout the grounds of the camp are mass graves, 100s of bodies in one location - one held 100 women and children, all beheaded, another held close to 500 people. The spot now is peaceful - with the sound of children laughing from a nearby schoolyard, and cows lounging in the remains of the orchard.
It seems incredibly frivolous, but we've essentially just spent the afternoon lounging on patios, trying to keep cool, and kill some time before our flight leaves tonight. The biggest concern is whether we have enough American cash left to buy another round of tasty banana & mango shakes. Not fair at all, is it?
If all of that wasn't depressing enough, we visited the Killing Fields of Cheuk Elk this morning. (I'm sure I've just spelled that wrong, but currently without my guidebook.) About 20 minutes outside of Phnom Penh, the small property was once an orchard, but for a period of 3-4 years in the late 70's it was a concentration camp where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge. As you enter the camp there's a large monument in the center, which houses the skulls of hundreds of victims. Placed on top of each other, in a series of shelves, the skulls are labelled by sex and approximate age and form a tower of disturbing proportions. You can walk right around the shelves, and many of the glass partitions are open, so if you disobeyed the signs, you could actually touch them. A heap of clothes found in the camp lay at the base of the tower of skulls, ragged, worn, and stained. Throughout the grounds of the camp are mass graves, 100s of bodies in one location - one held 100 women and children, all beheaded, another held close to 500 people. The spot now is peaceful - with the sound of children laughing from a nearby schoolyard, and cows lounging in the remains of the orchard.
It seems incredibly frivolous, but we've essentially just spent the afternoon lounging on patios, trying to keep cool, and kill some time before our flight leaves tonight. The biggest concern is whether we have enough American cash left to buy another round of tasty banana & mango shakes. Not fair at all, is it?
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