So I realized this morning that I've been spelling the name of this city wrong all along...got it right now. We got an early start this morning since Mike needed to hit the doctor. After breakfast we made our way down to the Central Market so he could pick up a camera too. Prices weren't as bad as we expected. The crazy thing about Cambodia is that they don't even use their own currency, the riel. Everything everywhere is priced in USD which is a nice change since you know how much you pay for things, but at the same time it feels more expensive than it should be. At the supermarket today I got some razors, shaving cream, body wash/shampoo, and body spray for $17...felt like I was back in the States. Anyways, just a random thought.
Next we stopped into the Genocide museum to follow-up our visit to the Killing Fields yesterday. Feeling good and having a good day until we started walking around. Very somber tone and the stories you read published on the walls of what happened during the Khmer Rouge period is unbelievable. During this time almost a third of Cambodia's population was wiped away. The Pol Pot basically told all the people in the cities that America was going to bomb the cities and forced them into the countryside where they worked in cooperatives at rubber factories, in rice fields. Anyone with education was killed, schools/courts abolished...they were basically trying to turn this into a Communist country with no ties/dependencies to the outside world. Very hard to believe this happened in some of our lifetimes. Its even crazier to talk to the local Cambodians and hear how they were affected and what parts of their families are not around anymore because of this unfortunate tragedy. Anyways, we spent a couple hours there walking around trying to figure out how this happened and felt like it was time to get out. Back to the guesthouse where we had some food on the lakefront deck.
Dropped off our passports today to get our visas for Vietnam and booked bus tickets leaving tomorrow for Siem Reap...SR is the home of Angkor Wat, the temples you might remember from Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. Looking forward to wandering around these impressive architectural wonders!
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