Hi friends! Bianca and Alex here!! On day one we started the morning with a sleep in and breakfast for heading off on our different adventures for the day! Di, Caz and Heidi went off to organise the pharmacy requirements for the trip, Rach and Gabby headed off to the shops to find us food (mainly breakfast and snacks) - having the difficult task to try and guess what's what with the labels written in a different language! Alex asked if the girls could pick up some tuna - while the picture on the tin looked like tuna, it was actually ham pate 😂 (This is yet to be tasted!)
Athina, Abha, Erica, Bianca and Alex (being the newbies this year) went off with the lovely Satya as our tour guide for the day. First stop was the Killing Fields.
The killing fields are a number of sites in Cambodia, where more than a collective of 1 million people were killed and buried by the communist Khmer Rouge regime during 1975-1979.
Temple filled with thousands of skulls found in the killing fields.
Walking through these sites was quite overwhelming and emotional. Multiple mass grave sites were marked out, having had 400+ people burried in them. The stories of the children who were killed (because their parents were being executed) especially sent chills down our spines.
Such heart wrenching strories.
After enjoying a fresh coconut and mini debrief at the killing fields, Satya drove us into the city to visit S-21 Prison, which is known as the Tuol Sleng Musium of Genocide.
Holy Moly! This place was intense. Starting off as a school, S-21 was turned into a prison in 1976, to be a torture, interrogation and execution centre. Of the 14000 people known to have entered, only 7 people survived. Each person that entered the prison was photographed on entry for their records (including children and babies!) Each picture expressed resignation, confusion, defiance and horror.
While walking through the rooms/hallways that were once filled with such unimaginable hate, anger and dispare, we were confronted with our emotions and overflowing sympathy for the victims of this terrible tragedy.
A massive thank you to Satya, for kindly sharing these emotional stories from Cambodias recent history with us.
The next task of the day was to find lunch fit for a vegetarian, coeliac and "spice innocent" group of people. Satya found the perfect place, which was a restaurant that supported and educated underprivileged women! Not only was this a great organisation to support, but the food was delicious! Money definitely well spent! We met up with the rest of the group, organised 3 Tuk Tuk's to take us into the Russian markets for a shop. We then went for dinner with some of our Cambidia family!
Back home, after dispensing pharmacy supplies we were showered and off to bed ready for tomorrow's adventures! All in all a successful day! We love Cambodia!!