MIRROR ME

Today we travelled from Sihanoukville, Cambodia to Chau Doc, Vietnam. It is a very busy city, crossing the road was manic! Everyone just sort of crosses even though you have motorbikes approaching at full speed and the bikes just sort of weave their way around you. Absolute madness.

We rode motorbikes to the top of a mountain to watch the sun set. Sunrise and sunset during the summer make my life. In a world full of bad things, I live for the natural beauty of it.

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I've had some lazy days on this trip because sometimes it's just too fast-paced for me. From time to time, when everyone goes off to do stuff, I just chill. Day 7 in Sihanoukville was spent just chilling on the beach reading a book called ''First They Killed My Father'' in which a little girl tells her story of the Cambodian Genocide.

Would you believe that this little cutie turned pretty aggressive when I refused to purchase bracelets from her after already buying about a million from all the other kids that came up to me? She went as far as to tell me to get out of her country and die while returning to mine. Talk about learning firsthand not to judge a book by it's cover.

On day 8, we set off for Chau Doc, Vietnam. So far, I prefer Cambodia to Vietnam. I might skip some days and not do the posts by day so I don't bore you with some less picturesque experiences.

Most of day 6 was spent on a bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. When we arrived at our hotel in the evening, we set off for a BBQ on the beach. I don't think it's possible not to fall in love with the Cambodian children. There were a lot of them on the beach so it was fun times playing with them on the beach.

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My second day in Phnom Penh started off on a very sad note. I am really interested in world history so I was shocked that I had no previous knowledge of the Cambodian Genocide.
Here goes a brief history lesson, from me to you:
The war in Vietnam spread to Cambodia when the United States bombed Cambodia’s borders to try to destroy the North Vietnam bases. The bombing destroyed many villages and killed many people, allowing the bad guys who threw Cambodia into 4 years of unbelievable destruction and mass murder to gain support from the peasant farmers. These guys were called the Khmer Rouge and were led by a Cambodian man called Pol Pot who was educated in France. For the next 4 years, these guys evacuated the cities, chasing everyone to the countryside to force them to do farm work and the like. They killed in the most inhumane ways all the educated people in Cambodia, erasing a whole generation. They also killed the many Vietnamese, Chinese and expatriates. For these years, the Cambodian people who were not killed worked on farms and fields, starved to death, and were trained to kill each other.
It made such an impression on me because it is hardly even history. Members of the Khmer Rouge still live amongst Cambodians today and walk the streets freely. It is only in recent years that efforts have been made to bring to justice the top members of the Khmer Rouge.
I visited the Tuol Sleng S-21 prison where people were held as prisoners of war and tortured for information, and the killing fields where people were murdered in the roughest ways and some buried alive in mass graves.
Children and adults were tortured into admitting they were part of the secret service- something they knew nothing about. Children were also brainwashed and forced to kill other "traitors" of the Khmer Rouge ruling, including their family members. It was a very bloody period in Cambodia and the rest of the world was shut off and prevented from gaining any information about what was happening in Cambodia.
Today, many Cambodians are still trying to heal as they are left orphaned and without family members. They keep asking the question "why" as this genocide makes absolutely no sense. Many of them are left only with the memories of those horrific years where they fought for survival. The Khmer Rouge leadership managed to kill 1.7million Cambodians.
This genocide is the reason why Cambodia today is engulfed in poverty. It was once a prosperous nation.

The graves of 14 bodies found in the S-21 prison when the Vietnamese were finally able to invade Cambodia.

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