Phonm Penh, Cambodia

We left the beach and headed inland to the capital of Cambodia, Phonm Penh. The hustling and bustling city was hot and humid but a bit more low key than Bangkok. We stayed on the lake side of the city where most of the backpackers end up staying in a place that left much to be desired. We crammed the 5 of us into one room to pay about $1.60 a night. But there wasn't just the 5 of us in the room. We happened to share the room with some friendly mice (although they ate some of our snacks) and some other strange bugs.

We hired a Tuk Tuk (the form of transportation here) and set off to see the history of Phonm Penh. We started off by going to the S21. One of the concentration camps during the Khmer Rouge that happened in the 1970's. There is so much history to Cambodia that is never taught in the schools and this country is finally starting to get it's feet back on the ground.

Next we went to the killing fields where the did mass execution of anyone with some form of education from knowing a second language to being a doctor. The leader of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot wanted to turn the country back into an agrarian society. He started kicking people out of the cities and killing anyone one with any higher knowledge.

From the Killing Fields we did something that most tourists don't see - the city dump of Phonm Penh. I'm sure you're all thinking, why the dump? There is a surprising amount of families that live at the dump because they have no money and no other way to get by. And they support themselves from findings at the dump.

We finished up the day all is a state of shock of the history that we had just learned about and the sites of the city that we had just seen.