My Very First Blog

This is my last post on my 6-day trip to Cambodia. Finally! You must be heaving a sigh of relief! But I hoped you have enjoyed reading about my Cambodia trip as much as I have enjoyed writing about it. Roast duck rice with plum sauce


Wanton noodles


Chicken feet


Rice with prawns and vegetables

During our 3 days in Phnom Penh, we drank beer at almost every meal. That's because our host would always bring along his friend who loves Heineken beer! I am not a beer drinking person, but out of courtesy, we had to drink along with him at every meal.

After lunch, our good host drove us to the airport. And while waiting for our plane to arrive, he even bought us ice creams! Can you believe it? I wish I have more of such friends LOL!



Now this is a funny ice cream. It's called the Original Blizzard ice cream and it is served upside down. If it drops, you get to eat it free!

Well, we were not given an 'upside down' ice cream, so Jam tried it on his own. He turned the cup upside down and waited. After a few seconds, the ice cream dropped off! Oops! There went his ice cream! I did not do that so I finished all my ice cream haha!

Soon it was time to enter the Departure Hall and we bid our good host and his friend good bye. I enjoyed my Cambodia trip very much and blogging about it helped me to relive those good moments of my life.

Now if you have missed any of my Cambodia travel posts, feel free to check them out below, all sorted out in chronological order.

After the traumatic experience at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum that left me feeling depressed, it was a great relief to hear that our good friend and host would be bringing Jam, his friend and I to the karaoke that night!

So right after that enjoyable French dinner at Van's Restaurant, we went straight to a karaoke place. We were brought into a large room complete with nice sofas and of course a karaoke set. Sorry there are no photos as cameras were strictly forbidden. I thought it would be just like Redbox Karaoke in Malaysia and I was eager to choose the songs I wanted to sing.

To my utter surprise, a row of young and beautiful girls were lined up in front of us! Seemed like it was more than just a karaoke - it was more like a night club! The three of us had to pick one girl each. I picked one and she sat next to me the entire time.

We had some fun singing and dancing but I did not do anything more than that (if you don't count the touching and hugging) although we were allowed to do so. The girl could not really speak English and so we had some kind of communication breakdown. But in the end, I learnt a few Khmer words and phrases from her LOL!





When we returned to out hotel room later that night, the three of us decided to call for massage service in our room. We had massage almost every night since coming to Cambodia - the rates were so cheap! There was a notice inside our room which states the rate for massage service, which is USD5 per hour. We told the receptionist at the lobby about our request before going up to our room.

Fifteen minutes later, the door bell rang. Jam went to open the door and in came a short, plump lady. She gave a puzzled look when she saw the three of us in the room and then she giggled out loud. What the heck! Both Jam and I let our friend had her first LOL!

A few minutes later, another lady came in. She's pretty hot but I thought with her very heavy make-up, she looked more like a hooker than a masseuse! Anyway, I quickly secured her as my masseuse cos I did not want to risk putting up with another plump lady! Hahaha!

By this time, we were already wondering how come they did not all arrive at the same time! We were told that the third lady was on the way. She eventually came not long after.





What happened next was nothing short of a joke. It was the worst massage I had ever experienced in my life! The girl massaging me did not know how to use the proper pressure and massage techniques. I could hear Jam complaining and scolding his masseuse. Apparently, she did not know how to massage either.

It soon became obvious that the three ladies were not there to provide massage. They were prostitutes! No wonder that plump lady gave us a puzzled look and started to giggle when she first came into our room! Horrors!

Jam was angry and told them to leave. The girl who massaged me was not happy that I paid her USD5. She said she had to take a taxi to reach the hotel and USD5 was not enough. I told her that the rate was agreed beforehand but of course, she had expected me to tip her for the sex service which of course she did not provide because I did not want it!

Anyway, after some argument, I decided to pay her USD7 just to get rid of her. She left with a sour face. I guess it was our first time calling for massage in a hotel room and we did not realize this actually meant calling for prostitutes! How naive we were!





But that's not the end of it. After the girls left, we got a call from the receptionist at the lobby asking us if we were happy with the service. Apparently, he was trying to ask for tips! Jam's friend told him off angrily over the phone. We had wanted proper massage, not sex!

It was a horrible experience for us. What a night! But I have to honestly say I had no regrets. This incident had somehow made my trip that much more memorable and kept me in stitches even to this very day!

On our second evening in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, our good friend and host brought us to a high class French restaurant called Van's Restaurant.



As we entered the premises, I realized the restaurant was located in a historical French colonial style building. In fact, the building was originally an Indochina Bank building dating as far back as 1898. It became the property of the Cambodian Van family in 1960 and served as the family residence for many years.



When the civil war broke out in 1970, the whole family fled the country leaving the youngest, 2 year old Porleng Van the last to escape with her sister Porlim. When the economy opened up in 2003, the Van family returned and Porleng restored the building and decided to open it to the public as a French restaurant.



We went up the stairs and came upon this gramophone.



I thought the gramophone blended perfectly with the French colonial architecture of the interiors.



The entrance into the Dining Room looked especially warm and welcoming.



As we stepped inside, I marveled at the interiors and the furniture.



I decided to take a few snapshots of the Dining Room.



There were not many customers at that time so I felt comfortable snapping away.



Soon we were all seated and the waiter took our orders.



We were given the complimentary bread.



My bread and butter. Yummy!



Our entrée was the French Onion Soup.



It was delicious!



We also ordered a bottle of red wine. Here's my glass of red wine which I enjoyed.



I had actually forgotten what I ate for my Main Course - it was more than a year ago! - but if not mistaken, it was Baked Lamb Sirloin. I only remember I kind of enjoyed it.



For dessert, I had the Soft Chocolate Apple Brownie with Cream Sauce.



It was sinfully delicious!



As with our hotel stay and our lunch, this dinner was again taken care of by our generous host. I have never ever dreamed of having a free French dinner in Cambodia, but that was what happened and I am really thankful.



The dinner sure helped me lift my depression after visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum hours earlier, but I guess we did not expect what was to come next!

Continued from Part 1

The Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum, previously a security prison known as S-21, has 4 main buildings, known as Building A, B, C and D.



Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B contains galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms which were sub-divided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.



After seeing the paintings by Van Nath, we went over to Building C. The ground floor of the building consists of single cells made of bricks.



I tried to take picture of a single cell unit but stopped short of stepping inside it. In some cells one can see iron chains and shackles but as I did not dare step into any of the unit, I did not take any photos of them.



As the S-21 security prison was formerly a high school, so what you see was actually a classroom that was divided into many tiny brick cells where prisoners were kept.

The chief of the prison was Khang Khek Leu (also known as Comrade Duch), who was a good friend of Pol Pot, leader of Khmer Rouge. Can you believe that Duch who was responsible for all the torture and killings in S-21, was a former mathematics teacher? If he had not been a good friend of Pol Pot, he would have probably been tortured and killed like all the others since the Khmer Rouge targeted educated people!

We then went up to the first floor of the building.



The first floor contains single cells made of wood.



As I walked past each wooden cell, I could imagine the horrors that happened here about more than 30 years ago. There were stories that prisoners were treated badly. They were given only four small spoonfuls of porridge and watery soup twice a day. Drinking water without getting the guards' approval would result in serious beatings.



I could not help feeling a little eerie walking past these cells that afternoon. Inside some of the cells and at corridors, I could see rice sprinkled on the floor. These rice were offerings to the spirits.



Many Cambodians believe the ghosts of the victims continue to haunt the place. I do not doubt it.



We went up to the second floor. It was used for mass detention. Barbed wires were placed there to prevent desperate prisoners from committing suicide.



Inside each room were thousands of photos of the victims. Some photos had notes that you can read. I felt emotional reading the stories. I refused to take any pictures of the victims as I felt uncomfortable having such pictures in my camera.

Below is a picture taken from the Internet.


Image courtesy of Thinking About Exhibits

I had to step out of the room to take a breather. I was feeling very down, almost depressed. It was as if the whole place wanted to drag you down with it.



We then went to Building D where we saw the instruments of torture used by the guards. I did not even want to take photos of them! Looking at the tools and imagining how they were used to torture the victims were too much for me to stomach!

Outside Building D, there was a grave dedicated to 14 victims found in Building A.



They were probably the last ones killed by the agents of S-21.



When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of 10 rules they had to follow during their incarceration. The rules were simply horrible! I took a snapshot of the 10 rules posted on The Security Of Regulation board. Please click on the photo to enlarge the image for easy reading. (The imperfect grammar was a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer)



Having seen with my own eyes the horror of this genocide, I was wondering if the leaders of Khmer Rouge would ever be punished and if Cambodians would somehow be healed from this dreadful history of their nation. There are Cambodians who had lost whole families, and I doubt they would ever find closure to this horrible event.

Meantime, the trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders is still ongoing. Pol Pot, the leader, had died under house arrest in 1998 at the age of 72. The remaining ones being tried are former Deputy Secretary of Khmer Rouge Nuon Chea, 84, former Head of State and Chairman of the party’s Central Committee Khieu Samphan, 79, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, 85, and his wife Ieng Thirith, 79. All four have pleaded non guilty.



Upon my return from Cambodia last July, I read a piece of news that stuck out like a sore thumb. Duch, the S-21 prison chief, had just been convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was reduced to 19 years for time served. That was absurd! How can a man responsible for thousands of deaths be sentenced to only 35 years? He should be getting life imprisonment!

NOTE : Coincidently, after I put up this post, the news came out the next day that the trial of the remaining 4 Khmer Rouge leaders had resumed. The four had tried to shift the blame to the late Pol Pot. I sincerely hope that justice for the Cambodian people will be found and that they will finally have closure. Follow latest development HERE.

It was an afternoon I would never forget.

After our lunch and a visit to the Russian Market, our good friend and host brought us to the infamous Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh.



If it does not look like a museum to you, that's because it was formerly a high school but was converted into a prison and interrogation centre by the Khmer Rouge communist regime from 1975 to 1979.

Widely known as Security Prison 21 (or S-21) at that time, this is the place where an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned and tortured. Tragically, out of this number, there were only 12 known survivors to date!

The S-21 is now a Genocide Museum which also serves as a memorial to those who died. It is open to the public and receives about 500 visitors a day. Prior to this visit, I had very little knowledge about this dark side in the history of Cambodia. I have heard about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime but they did not make much of an impact on me NOT until I visited this place.

Our good friend who had brought us here had firmly refused to accompany us inside, citing reasons ranging from 'traumatic' and 'nightmares' to 'haunted'. That however, did not deter us. Being first time visitors to Phnom Penh, we knew we just had to visit it.

Before entering the building, I saw this warning notice outside.



DO NOT LAUGH. DO NOT WRITE OR PAINT ON THE PHOTOS AND WALL. It surely set a sombre tone for the rest of our tour.

Upon entering, I saw a stupa encased in glass and a cabinet filled with human skulls of the victims.



I am sorry I had deleted all the close shots of the skulls as I had felt uncomfortable with the pictures in my camera. If you wish to look at some pictures of the skulls from the Internet, you may want to click HERE and HERE.

Now if you are not very familiar with the genocide tragedy that happened in Cambodia, let me tell you very briefly, the horror story that had made a deep impact on me that day.

After Khmer Rouge led by dictator Pol Pot, took over the previous government in 1975, they intended to turn Cambodia into a self-sufficient, classless society. Schools, hospitals, factories and banks were closed. Finance and currency were removed. Families were broken up and people were uprooted from their homes. Major cities were completely evacuated with the entire populations sent to working camps. Those who were rich, popular, or well educated (or perceived to be educated) who had the slightest ability to undermine the new regime were taken to torture camps and prisons where they were forced to confess to treasons, resulting in execution.

Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of over 2 million innocent Cambodians over a period of 4 years. That was almost one third of the entire population in Cambodia! The death toll could have been higher if not for the Vietnamese Army which invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

Walking inside the Genocide Museum, I saw many paintings on the wall showing victims being tortured. These paintings were painted by Van Nath, a survivor of the S-21 atrocities. He was spared because of his drawing skills.



I did not take many photos of the paintings. Most of them were gruesome depictions of the horror and suffering that the victims had to endure. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging. Other torture methods include sleep deprivation, starvation, suffocation with plastic bags, heads held under water and waterboarding.

There was one picture that showed a prisoner with his fingernails being pulled out while alcohol was poured onto the wounds. Oh my God!

The cruelty was beyond comprehension! How could any human being do this to another fellow human being? I was shocked. Besides, most of the prisoners were ordinary Cambodians, not criminals and they were tortured simply to extract confessions to crimes they did not commit!

I managed to take a photo of one of Van Nath's paintings. It shows a baby being snatched away from her mother - both probably ended up being killed mercilessly. It was heartbreaking.




I could not bear to take photos of the other paintings, but for the benefit of my readers, I have decided (although very reluctantly) to post some of the pictures I found from the Internet below.











In a diabolical attempt to eliminate all those that were considered a threat to the Khmer Rouge government, the prisoners were forced to name relatives, colleagues, friends and even acquaintances in their confessions. These people who were named would then be arrested and sent to S-21 for interrogation.

Those who had confessed would then be taken outside and killed. During the first year, the killings took place at the prison, but when there was no longer enough burial space left, they were taken to Choeung Ek, a killing field 15km away. There, they were killed using iron bars, pickaxes, machetes or other makeshift weapons and buried in mass graves.


Another Van Nath painting depicting the killing fields

The paintings alone had already left a deep impact on me. But as we toured the building, checking out the torture cells, looking at thousands of photos of the victims and reading their stories, I suddenly felt down, very down.



The full horror of the senseless Khmer Rouge killings had only began to sink in.

To be continued ...