phnom penh

we are in phnom penh now. we arrived around 3pm and it was a smooth trip here. other than our driver honking the entire way at just about everything you could imagine on the road. including cows that would just get out of the way in the nick of time. at least they have a real road between siem reap and phnom penh.

we found a place to stay where all of the budget travelers go. it's a safe area and has good food. we probably will not see much of phnom penh. we have been told by some people that it's just not a good idea to go exploring the city. we just want to see a few things here anyway. we want to see Toul Svay High School that is now a genocide museum. we hear is very disturbing to see. it was the Khmer Rouge prison in which some 20,000 people were tortured and killed from 1975-1979. apparently they have not changed much about the way it looks so it can be disturbing. it was particularly used to kill the well educated and elite: doctors, teachers, military personnel and government officials and worse yet babies. maybe i should have known this and all of you already do but i know that they didn't teach me in school that 2 million people were murdered in this country and it was not that long ago. it was only in the early 90's that the war ended.
well, i don't want to sound like i'm giving a history lesson. i am just interested in learning about what happened here and shocked that we were not taught more in school about it. we have been picking up books about Cambodia because they are soooo cheap but our bags are starting to get a bit heavy.

tonight in our guest house we met the owner. we guess he is around 70. he had 8 children, two have passed away. he didn't speak english, jose was talking with him in french. he is lucky to have survived, they were killing people back then just for knowing how to speak french. jose said his french was terrible but it sounded good to me and they were understanding each other. he said that back in the 70's he was sent out into the fields to work so he is very lucky to be alive.