2024-12-26 - (Boxing) Day 2 - Killing Fields / S21

 

Breakfast in the hotel which was yummy - eggs and pancakes! We were picked up from our hotel by Visal who was amazing. His grandparents and parents lived through the  Khmer Rouge, and he had so many stories of what happened. We visited the killing fields first, walked around the monument filled with skulls, and the human bones were still scattered in the fields and uncovered every day by the sweepers. We paid our respects with incense and lotus flowers which was pretty emotional after all this time.

We headed to S21, which was fascinating and everything it lived up to be. Mango trees grew in the centre, and we toured the 4 blocks which represented the quality of prisoner for each block - the lesser the importance of the prisoner, the more degrading the conditions. Everyone was killed though, apart from 9 prisoners whom the Khmer Rouge thought were helpful to their cause - artists, typewriter repairers, photographers. We just so happened to be there when 2 survivors were visiting the prison and we managed to meet them. It was incredible to finally meet a survivor.

We finished the tour at around 1pm, and we had lunch on the roof. Rox and I decided to visit Elite Gym, which was this crazy open air gym, and we did a cool hour workout. We came back and jumped in the pool and had a couple of running races in the pool which were so funny - I won this round. We sat and watched the streets below for ages before we went back down and chilled in our room, and headed out to an Italian - a bit expensive, but incredible! The pizza was the standout surprisingly, but we had the Vongole and fishing plum sauce, and the girls had spaghetti. We finished off with Sticky Rice with Mango and a mango sorbet dessert. Both were so nice! We walked around the markets again.