PHNOM PENH (Day 19 - part 2)

We drove to the next site of Choeng Ek. The traffic here can be super bad, often in gridlock. Cars seldom obey traffic lights and all just push through. They even completely ignore traffic cops standing in the street!

Extremely dusty roads!

Choeung Ek is where they used to march people to be killed, usually by hitting them on the head (instead of shooting them, to save ammunition). Known as a killing field, there were thousands of these around the country where the Khmer Rouge killed and buried their victims.

A memorial building, filled with some 8,000 skulls, stood next to some of the excavated graves.

Skulls of the victims pulled from the mass graves were so clean that is was assumed they were covered with tons of lime to dissolve the bodies quickly.

The skulls were sorted by age and gender.

Most of those found here were from Tuol Sleng.

The earth was so saturated with humans that bone fragments and shards of clothing could still be seen protruding from the ground.

Washing the bovine in nearby pools

We then drove to the Russian market. The large covered market had everything one could imagine! We also explored the food market.

Lotus flowers

Back at the hotel, Ron packed up and Sophet brought us all to the airport, which wasn't very far away. Once he disappeared through the gate, Gerald and I went to a restaurant then checked into a new, MUCH nicer hotel... for US$7.50.

After settling into the room, Gerald quickly showed me to the third floor. There was a hallway with chairs that face a large pane of glass, behind which sat a good 50 scantily glad girls with numbers on them. The whole floor was dedicated with rooms for them too.

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