6th Jan Phnom Penh

After a yummy breakfast we're off to see the Royal Palace (King's residence and temples) this is the posh part of Phnom Penh- beautiful, lush grounds, stunning buildings. The piece de resistance is the Silver Pagoda the floor covered in more than 5000 silver tiles, weighing 1kg each. Most covered up for protection but some can be seen. This houses Cambodia's own Emerald Budda (again not made of emerald) bejewelled with more than 9000 diamonds. There's also a bed once used by the king on his coronation day designed to be carried by 12 men with gold work alone weighing more than 23kg! Impressive stuff.
Then we visit Pen Watt, temple on the hill containing a statue of lady Pen who founded the city.
From the best sites we go to the worst with a visit to the Genocide museum. This was a school originally but during the Khmer Rouge was turned into a prison and torture centre. Our guide Soka sits us down in the shade and starts to explain about the Khmer Rouge and what happened between 1975-79.  It's an awful story with unbelievable violence and cruelty but the numbers are beyond comprehension and it's his personal part of the story which upsets us most. The feel of the place was awful and I avoid looking too closely because you reach a point when you've heard as much as you can. The Cambodians had been to hell and back. Our guide's story of labour camps, not enough food and being orphaned is by no means uncommon, there are few Cambodians of the older generation left due to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. We could only ask "Why?" again and again but in the end no-one seems to know.
After allowing our spirits to recover a little over lunch we complete the story by visiting the Killing Fields, one the sites at which the Cambodian people were brutally murdered and buried in mass graves. A monument filled with skulls, walkways between covered mass graves are incongruous with the trees and bird song. As before it's the small things that can get you most and spotting 2 human teeth beside a grave somehow made more of an impact than all the skulls.
An emotional, draining day yet important to know about however hard.