This morning we woke up to meet our guide to head to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. This was just the first of our heavy experiences of the day as it was followed by the Genocide Museum later. It really amazes me how cruel people can be to their own. This experience brings back the emotions I felt when learning about the genocide in Chile for the first time. Pol Pot was as bad as Hitler or Pinochet, yet we never learned a thing about him in school and even the UN recognized his government through the 70s and 80s. 
After the Killing Fields, as if we hadn't had enough, afterward we visited the S21 Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which during the Pol Pot regime was used as a prison for anyone the Khmer Rouge decided to bring it to torture, interrogate and ultimately cart off to the Killing Fields for execution. The museum is full of well-documented photographs and records of all the men, women and children that passed through its cells from 1975 to 1979. We all left the museum in a very somber mood.
Since we opted for Western food on our first night in Phnom Penh, we chose Malis, a Khmer restaurant, for dinner. What a treat! I had chicken curry in a lotus leaf that was sweeter than a Thai or Indian curry which was delicious. We also had some scallops with peppercorn to start that were awesome. The restaurant was set in a pretty courtyard with a little pond with fish in the middle. Great night!
On our last morning in PP, we planned to visit the Royal Palace, but unfortunately the hotel misinformed us and it was closed. Since we were already out and about, we wandered down the river until we happened upon Wat Ounalom, a Buddhist temple that was celebrating the new year in full force. We ventured inside, sticking out like sore thumbs as the only westerners in the entire buzzing complex. There was a woman near the entrance to the temple with a cage of small birds for sale. Children and their parents could purchase a bird to hold by the neck momentarily before releasing it into the sky. I'm guessing this is some sort of good luck or a wish for the new year. Pretty neat ritual, although I do feel bad for the little birds. There were hundreds of people milling about in their Sunday best praying with the monks, making donations, buring insense and putting rice into a series of bowls for the monks to eat.
After leaving the temple, we caught a tuc-tuc back to our hotel but stopped short before we reached it. It turned out that though the Royal Palace was closed, the National Museum next door was open. With nothing else to do but lie by the pool at The Plantation, we opted for some culture. The museum itself is housed in a very beautiful old building. Unfortunately it hasn't been kept up very well. Nonetheless, there are some beautiful sculptures from as early as the 9th century of the many Hindu gods. We learned a bit about the mixture of Hindu and Buddhist culture throughout Cambodian history which I'm still not sure I quite understand.
Now, we're off to Siem Reap for the final leg of our Vietnam/Cambodia adventure before heading back to Hong Kong to catch up with our other friends from LBS on Friday.
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