We flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia which happened to also celebrate Songkran but you would never have known. The city in nice terms looked like the old west. Deserted. Shops closed. Dust and trash littered all over; though there were small gatherings of people at the park across our guesthouse. Their version of Songkran is unlike anything in Thailand, but that was a good thing for us. I was tired of being fully drenched.
Entering Cambodia was something I always thought I'd do. To learn more about the country's history outside of textbooks which hardly goes into detail at all. Visiting the "Killing Fields" and the Tuol Seng Museum or S-21 was an eye-opener. The fields is a place where thousands of prisoners of the Khmer Rouge were taken and executed. There was just an overload of information about what happened at these fields that I never knew before. Being able to walk around, see the mass graves that were discovered was pretty intense.
After that we went to the S-21 prison, which was a high school but converted into a prison and torture chamber for those who were against or didn't fit into the ideals of Pol Pot and their regime. This is where the photographs of all the victims of the prison are posted on boards for people to see. You also got to walk through the cells and chambers where they were tortured and held.
So as depressing as that was, I was glad I went. And although Phnom Penh is still a developing city, they really have come a long way from what it was 16 years ago when the whole country was in ruins.
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