Phnom Penh - Day 2, Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Museum

Today I went to both the Killing fields and Tuol Sleng Museum. I started at the Tuol Sleng Museum which is a converted school where in the late 1970s, when the Kymer Rouge took over control of the country, they used as a prison to torture and hold people. It was a very strange place to go.

Many of the rooms still had the iron beds and shackles in them and the barb wire was on a number of the buildings. There were thousands of photos on display of the prisoners who went to the prison which was the worst part. In the 3 years it was operating 20,000 people passed through here on their way to be executed, only 7 survived. There was all sorts of information on the stories that went on here which was pretty hard to read at times.



Photos of the Prisoners at Tuol Sleng

As you can imagine it was a sobering experience but good to understand this part of Cambodia's past which happened not that long ago. After this I went to the 'Killing Fields' which is where the prisoners were taken for execution. There is a morcelium there now which contains over 1,000 of the skulls and clothes that were dug up when a number of the plots were excavated in 1980. As the area is prone to flooding there is still parts of bone and clothing being washed to the surface around the site. Whilst walking around I saw a number of teeth and items of clothes which the victims were wearing at the time they were executed.

Morcelium at the Killing Fields

There was a great museum which had more information and a video about what happened. All in all it was a pretty depressing experience but very good to see and one that makes you appriciate how lucky you are.

I went to the National Stadium after this and I was in luck as they were showing a football match and I needed cheering up. I arrived 20 minutes into the match. The game was between Chhlam Samuth and Preah Khan Reach. Two teams from the Cambodian National League.

Football at the National Stadium

It was a very good game and finished 3-0 and only cost about 30p to watch too! When I left the stadium after the game there was alot going on around the ground. All the locals has come out to play football, volleyball and tennis. The facilities weren't great (some of the pitches had floodlights in the middle of them) but they just got on and enjoyed playing the games.

I also noticed that they have aerobics classes on the top of the football stadium which was interesting to see. You could see everyone was enjoying themselves and got a good feeling about what the locals get up to in the evening. No one seemed to be worried about a huge thunderstorm coming!!

Outside the Stadium

Overall it was a great day and I think I really like Phnom Penh. Tomorrow I'll be sorting out my Vietnam Visa, booking my ticket to Siem Reap and possibly going to watch Transformers 3 at the cinema they have here.

Ive added an album with the photos I took today, some of them were taken at the Prison and Killing Fields so are not pleasent but I hope you like them.