Well I've done much of what I wanted to do today in PP, after deciding to hire my own tuk-tuk service (for $15) with driver called Napp. We first went 15km or so out of town to the Khmer Rouge "killing fields" at Choeung Ek, and then to the museum of the genocidal attrocities (housed in a former secondary school at Tuol Sleng which they turned into a terrible prison and torture camp).
I was actually glad to be on my own in these places. Speech is more or less forbidden anyway, and the best way to see them must be just to walk in thought and silence. No graphic pictures here of course, but I'll give you an oblique shot of the pagoda at Cheoung Ek.
As it happens I bumped into a Swedish couple who had been companions on the journey from HCMC - and a rare fellow-Scot. None of us felt like speaking much.
I'm not giving history lessons here, but I certainly hadn't realised quite how bad things were in this country until really very recently. After all that the Cambodian National Museum was a good way to get a bigger perspective on what Cambodia has been about over the centuries.
Photos aren't allowed inside, but you can have one of the fine internal garden and pond area. The other pictures are of of the back of Napp's head and some of the street scene from tuk-tuk level (the local version is really a motorbike with a trailer) , and a group of novice monks walking past the royal palace. There is a lot of (re)construction going on around the city and it has a pretty positive feel about the place.
I was actually glad to be on my own in these places. Speech is more or less forbidden anyway, and the best way to see them must be just to walk in thought and silence. No graphic pictures here of course, but I'll give you an oblique shot of the pagoda at Cheoung Ek.
As it happens I bumped into a Swedish couple who had been companions on the journey from HCMC - and a rare fellow-Scot. None of us felt like speaking much.
I'm not giving history lessons here, but I certainly hadn't realised quite how bad things were in this country until really very recently. After all that the Cambodian National Museum was a good way to get a bigger perspective on what Cambodia has been about over the centuries.
Photos aren't allowed inside, but you can have one of the fine internal garden and pond area. The other pictures are of of the back of Napp's head and some of the street scene from tuk-tuk level (the local version is really a motorbike with a trailer) , and a group of novice monks walking past the royal palace. There is a lot of (re)construction going on around the city and it has a pretty positive feel about the place.
I've decided to fly to Bankok on Monday with Air Asia (a Thai low-cost airline) and then look for the best onward connection to Delhi. That leaves me with another day in PP, and the right thing to do seems to be to hit a market area called Psar Tuol Tom Pong (also known as the Russian Market for some reason). I'm told it is one of the cheapest places in Asia for all sorts of goods, some of which may even be genuine. So now is the time to give me your shopping lists.
I'm beginning to take more to the Okay GH here. I had very pleasant chat tonight with Claudia from Holland, who had just arrived on today's version of my own trip yesterday. I had a lot of sympathy for how she felt - and we had a lot in common to talk about over Nepal.
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