After leaving Sihanoukville, we headed by public bus to Pnom Pen. Pnom Pen is the Capitol and largest city of Cambodia - as well as the dirtiest. Directly outside our hotel a group of 10 year old were huffing glue out of plastic bags and scratching their bleeding scabs. Down the street a man was shuffling through the only dumpster in town like a kid in the school sandbox. At the silver pagaoda, one of Pnom Pens historic sights, monkeys were chained by the foot to a pole in the ground. We still can not figure out why.
All this sorrow was put into perspective when we took a trip to the Genocide museum and Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. I was reminded just how fresh the bloody massacres and genocide by the Khmer Rouge is in this city. It was only about a generation ago the city was forcefully evacuated as well as physically, culturally, and emotionally demolished by Pol Pot and his bloody regime. The city is still recovering, but with rampant government corruption, the healing is slow.
Yesterday we arrived by bus in Saigon, Vietnam. Here, you do not feel you are in communist country. With an economy growing at greater then 8 percent, it is as thriving as any city I have been in. I have only been here less then 24 hours, and have already had three bowls of Pho (noodle soup.) I may eat this soup every day until I leave this country!
Tomorrow we will visit Reunification Palace and the Cu Chi tunnels.
The uploading of photos have proved more difficult then I imagined, and I may just wait until I am home.
1 response so far ↓
1 jud // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:54 am
Wow, Pnom Pen sounds like Joppa Maryland minus the chained monkeys, keep up the bloggin’, im hooked .
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