Beauty and Horror

We went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – a pretty horrifying but also deeply moving experience and the kind of pilgrimage it felt necessary to make – a former school building built around a beautiful leafy courtyard but with much of the interior, roughly remade by the Khmer Rouge as a prison and centre for torture, left as it was found after the fall of the regime. A very good audioguide gives more information, as if it were really needed. Afterwards we finished the job by going on to the killing field site and memorial stupa at Choeung Ek. Then, much in need of contrast, we got the tuk tuk driver to drop us off at the Russian Market on the way home and had a wander amidst the life and chaos – I bought a krama too, a traditional Cambodian scarf, I might even wear it one day…! And it is my birthday after all. We went round the corner to Brown Coffee when we got back to the hotel and celebrated with coffee and cake. And later I got taken out for a posh Khmer meal at Malia, kind of like yesterday’s but more opulent – the soft shell crabs and mango salad were particularly good…