The next day Greg and I took a tuk-tuk to see "The Killing Fields". Our first stop was the school turned torture chamber within the city. It was a gruesome site. Many of the classrooms contained the beds, torture implements, and pictures of victims. There were so many. I remember hearing of the atrocities back in the '70s, quite a different thing to be where they took place.
From the school we drove out to the spot where the victims were buried. Many of the skeletons were excavated but many are still in the ground. You could see bones and clothing sticking out of the ground. Over 17,000 men, women, and children were buried here. And this site is only one of over 14 across Cambodia.
The road we were on went through the poor part of Phnom Penh. Unlike Vietnam where most people have motorcycles, workers were crammed into pickup trucks. The house on stilts was in a body of water that smelled like a cesspool! The greenery is called "morning glory" and is a vegetable staple in this part of Asia. The contrast between rich and poor in Cambodia was more obvious than Vietnam. We also saw many victims of landmines, struggling to make a living. The man was our tuk-tuk driver.
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