Last evening, we ran into Matt (Aussie that was on the same bus as we were up here), and he mentioned that the guest house people were asking him where his Canadian friends were...they were looking for us. So we walked back to the guest house, and Rozette was there and wanted to talk with us. Rozette is 11 years old, and speaks amazing english for his age, and is so well spoken, sometimes sounds so mature. He wants to be a doctor. He remembers Darren and Mavis very well (Darren is my little brother, Mavis his fiance), and wanted to meet us too. We talked for about 10 minutes, then we went our way for a shake, and went to bed.
I was up about 7:00, not tired anymore. Showered, got dressed, walked around for half an hour or so, then back to the hotel, and laid down. Courtney slept until about 9:00. We went for breakfast (took forever, slow restaurant), purchased a bus ticket to Sihanoukville, then converted some money to riel. 2700 riel to $1CDN or about 4000riel to $1US. Then a short internet stop, back to the guest house, and they invited us upstairs. Rozette and family where having lunch, they invited us to join them, but we had just eaten, so we just had an ice coffee. AFter they finished eating, we all sat around and talked, and Rozette and Malava (the mother, a nurse) asked us where we'd like to go today. They wanted to come with us, and they also wanted to take us to the Thai Gardens for pictures, as it is quite beautiful there. We told them the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Museum (S21), so Rozette talked to his dad, and it would cost us $10US for those two spots, then they'd take us to the Thai Gardens. A motorcycle taxi would have cost $5US/person, so this was a good deal. So, they got their car, and got changed into their Sunday best (Malava wearing a nice dress, Rozette and Roza in their school uniforms), and at 12:30 all 8 or us (me, Court, Ropiset, Rozette, Roza, Malava, the father, and the grandmother) piled into their small Toyota. It was a tight squeeze, 3 in the front, 5 in the back. At least they had air conditioning.
Killing Fields first, they have a big monument filled with the skulls of those buried in the mass graves. Almost 9000 people buried here. You can still see human remains coming up out of the ground, and still see their clothes scatter and torn around the mass graves.
Next is the museum. Very gruesome, it was a high school turned torture and death chamber by Pol Pot and his minions. Some rooms have metal beds where people were chained down and tortured and killed, then pictures were taken of their bodies. These pictures still hang from the walls of these rooms. You can walk freely thoughout all of these rooms, and touch anything you want. It's quite gruesome. Other rooms were divided into small solitary confinement cells, perhaps 1.5'x6'. We then watched a 1 hour video about the Khmer Rouge and S21 and the Killing Fields.
The family (don't even know their last name!) went through this as well. The grandfather was killed by the Khmer Rouge, Malava's parents fled into the remote areas of Cambodia, and Malava almost starved to death, there was no rice to eat, she had to live off of these strange "things" that fall from the trees, they are very disgusting to eat, but if not for that, she would have starved to death.
We then went to the Thai Gardens, about 15km out of town, stopping along the way to get some mango at the side of the road. Thai Gardens is very nice, kind of like a nursery and park. We took lots and lots of pictures of and with the family. Court and I and Roza and Rozette played games, hide-and-seek and red-light/green-light. We haven't done that since we were kids! We spent about 1.5 hours there. They invited Court and I to join them for soup this evening. Rozette would show us some Cambodian traditional dancing, and we'd do card tricks also. We accepted their invitation.
Back to the guest house, Court and I went out for a drink, then joined the family for supper soup about 8:00. Malava was at the hospital, so was late getting back, we had supper about 8:45. Very tasty. After supper, Rozette showed us some card tricks he had learned from Darren and Mavis, and we showed him some card tricks as well. Then he taught Court some traditional Cambodian dancing, and Courtney showed him and Roza how to dance, bar-style! It was a lot of fun.
Court and I went to bed about 10:00. Very busy day, and we have to get up early to catch a bus to Sihanoukville.
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