We took a ferry back to Sihanoukville and had arranged a bus to Phnom Penh. We arrived after dark, taking a tuk tuk to our hostel, the awesome 88 backpackers (88backpackers.com).
Despite checking into a 12-person dorm, the room was incredibly spacious and very well air-conditioned.
Sweet dreams.
The following day we decided to learn more about Cambodia's horrifying contemporary history and went to visit Tuol Sleng museum or Security Prison 21 (S-21).
A little background: on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, had taken over Phnom Penh and implemented his extreme-Maoist policies among its inhabitants.
He proclaimed 'year zero' or the restarting of Cambodian society and civilization as the world knew it.
As part of the restructuring, the city of Phnom Penh was virtually liquidated, its inhabitants forced to leave the city, march into the countryside and work in the fields as slaves for 12-15 hours per day in agrarian cooperatives.
Any enlightened individual or intellectual, comprising anyone capable of speaking another language, read, or even who wore glasses were executed by the thousands.
Many of these intellectuals, considered enemies of the state, passed through the various security prisons, including S-21, being executed in the various killing fields throughout the country.
Tuol Sleng was a high school prior to 1975. It was renamed Security Prison 21 when taken over by the Khmer Rouge.
Today, it is a museum commemorating all the men, women and children held and tortured within those walls.
It has remained untouched since it was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979, blood stains still painting the dirty walls and floors.
Much like other genocidal regimes, the Khmer Rouge meticulously documented and photographed all its 17,000 prisoners, often after a fresh round of brutal torture.
What makes it particularly haunting is that these thousands of prisoners' pictures line the walls of the museum, personifying the terror that occurred in this complex. Some of the prisoners were children, being implicated in a purge they were even too young to comprehend.
Josh and I took our time walking through the various rooms, corridors and cells; reading the numerous posters explaining methods of torture and absolute horror inflicted on these innocent people.
It was a sobering and emotionally draining afternoon, but I'm very glad that we went.
It is said that out of the 17,000 prisoners held at S-21, only 7 survived and only because the prison was liberated by the Vietnamese before they could be executed.
Believe it or not, but some of the rescued 7 men actually continue to work as tour guides at S-21, acting as ambassadors for peace and to help young Cambodians understand about their modern history.
The following day, we went to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, 15km out of central Phnom Penh. We were joined by Maria from Mexico; and Matt and Till from Germany.
The five of us rented a tuk tuk that brought us to the site.
The killing fields are where most of S-21's prisoners were brought and bludgeoned to death: for the Khmer Rouge, bullets were too expensive to waste, so they used farming tools, bamboo shoots and pretty much anything else they could get their murderous hands on, killing the prisoners often in the longest and most excruciating way possible.
The now peaceful field is littered with mass graves and Buddhist prayer beads, honoring the victims.
The most intense part of the audio-guided tour was when we were led to an oak tree and it was explained that it was against this tree that babies and infants were slammed until they died.
The final stop on the tour was to a memorial stupa containing over 8000 skulls of victims and remnants of their clothes.
Like the killing caves near Battambang, it is unfathomable to believe that this is but one mass execution site out of hundreds during the four-year period that Pol Pot reigned.
It is estimated that up to 3,000,000 people were executed or died of starvation during the Khmer Rouge age.
What is also unbelievable is that the Khmer Rouge were viewed as the legitimate leaders of Cambodia by the UN until 1993!
However, the most unreal aspect of it all is how despite all the carnage and suffering, Cambodians are the most kind, sincere and warm people I have ever met.
There was not one day where I was not greeted by an ear-to-ear smile or waved at from an elderly person or child.
Cambodians are the personification of the human spirit and I am truly in awe of their amazing perseverance and incredible ability to rise above the past, no matter how difficult it may be.
After 2 days of lump-in-the-throat, tear-jerking emotional turmoil, the five of us needed a break.
Matt and Josh went to shoot an M16 and AK-47 at the military base, while I worked on my blog.
Josh and I had also handed in our passports in order to get a visa for Laos to resume our tour of Asian communist regimes.
To break up the trip, we decided to spend a night in Kratie, located on the mighty Mekong River.
Kratie, which lies on one of the most beautiful sections of the Mekong in Cambodia, is also home to the highest concentrations of Irrawaddy, or freshwater dolphins, in Laos and Cambodia.
In fact, the tourist office guarantees you will see these bizarre looking creatures on every boat-cruise they organize.
This section of the Mekong was absolutely stunning and to see it as the sun was setting and the dolphins breaching for air was breathtaking. A fitting end to our three weeks in this magnificent country.
While Angkor Wat was incredible and the museums heart-wrenching, it is the people that truly make this an unforgettable place, and I hope that as the years go by, their prosperity improves so that they can impart their amazing spirit on many more of those who are suffering as they did only several decades ago.
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