Day Twenty Nine: Cambodia's Capitol city

Day Twenty Nine February 19th, 2009
Siem Reap to Phenm Phen

A short journey to Cambodia's capitol will help us to learn about the sad history of these people. As a capitol city, Phenm Phen is relatively small and quiet with a population of only 1.5 million. The scars of the Khmer Rouge are still very evident as you walk through the city and see people missing limbs or with severe scaring. During the Khmer Rouge in the mid seventies, Pol Pot outlawed education and forced all people to work the fields in hopes to create an agrarian utopia similar to Angkorian times. Anyone with an education was rounded up and taken first to a security area for questioning and then to a site where they were to be killed and buried. All the cities in this country were converted to ghost towns for the nearly four years that Pol Pot was in power. The capital has recovered well since then and the influences of the western world are easy to see. English is considered to be the second language and there is not a shortage of bars and clubs for people to drink and dance the night away.