Living well in Cambodia
Mood:  quizzical
Today we are in Phnom Penh Cambodia and will be here until Sunday. The are having a coronation of their new King today so the riverfront is decorated with flags and streamers. While there were fireworks over the water last night, the celebration is mostly behind the walls of the palace. The people seem to be going about their daily lives and are left out of most of it, but we still hope to get some information on a parade or festival.

We spent several days in Siem Reap which is the town closest to the Angkor Wat temples. It is a town like no other in Cambodia and has benefited/suffered (depending on how you look at it) from an influx of foreign dollars. There are large beautiful hotels and resorts being built everyday. Everything is advertised in American dollars (not reil) and prices are jacked up. The effects of the civil war and other wars is apparent. There are many many amputees begging for money, or selling books and souvenirs. The land mines are still an issue in the countryside. We went to a landmine "museum" which was really just a shack with stories, pamphlets and artifacts from the war. It had many different kinds of mines and dramatic images of war. I found it empowering how the amputee children where working the museum and playing soccer out front. This charity serves as a home for many of them and ensures that they are educated.

We visited the temples at Angkor and got on a bus for Phnom Pehn. This is the capital of Cambodia and sits at the confluence of the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong River. Our hotel overlooks this spot. Yesterday we went to visit a museum that is in a Khmer Rouge Prison camp. We learned about the torture and brutality of the regime. We then went to the killing fields and learned about the genocide that happen, and saw the 8000 skulls of the dead. At the museum there were photos of the people who had been held and torture there. This was in 1977! I was a kid at the same time as the kids in the photos, but lucky enough to be born in the USA.