The initials PP, in my mind, stand for Phnom Penh...the capital of cambodia and, i imagine, the most modern of its cities...but not long ago this busy city was rendered a ghost town by another 'PP'...Pol Pot....tyranical, evil leader of the gut wrenchingly murderous Khmer Rouge....
this morning began with yet another eye opening visit to a museum which spoke of untold crimes and inhuman torture. I think it is important to go to these places - in this case the toul sleng genocide museum which was once S-21, a prison of detention, interrogation, inhumanity, torture and murder...in vietnam, the war museum...these places bring to life and reality the history of yesterday, much more than reading a book will do. But it's horrendous all the same and, by the end of the visit, after viewing a movie about the regime, walking close to instruments of torture and the bare skulls of victims, viewing the hundreds of mug shots of solumn and scared victims, my emotions could not have handled a visit to the 'killing fields'where the victims throats were slashed before being buried in a mass open grave....
Instead we sat down to regroup and to marvel over the way that this country has also regrouped - all within my lifetime...there is wealth in this city - more so than i noticed anywhere in vietnam...so many more cars - in fact i don't think i've ever seen so many lexus 4WDs...but the devide between the very poor and the very rich seems so much more pronounced here. I'm more likely to give to the beggers here...there is no government help for them...we give bread to the children dressed in rags and don't mind tipping extra to a tuk tuk driver who goes out of his way to help...
But on sunday arvo here in PP people are happy...walking past a park we watched families out for a stroll...their babies chasing the pidgons...teenagers flirting under the trees and a group of boys playing football, dressed in their man city shirts...we could have been anywhere in the world...not least a country which was decimated only 30 years ago.
tomorrow we head out of pp and spend some more quality time with a bus as we head to Siem reap (SR) and the magnificent Angkor wat Temples.
stay tuned. xx
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