As the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh showcases both the people's future and their dark history. An evening cyclo ride gave us our bearings in town, and supported the Cyclo Centre. The organization helps farmers moving to the city become responsible cyclo drivers and send money back home.
The next day we experienced several "confronting places", as our guide Komphak put it, where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed many Cambodians under Pol Pot's rule. Toul Sleng was a sunny school complex turned into a sinister torture prison for intellectuals and dissidents. Its classrooms became cramped cells with barb wire balcony's to prevent prisoners from jumping to a fatal escape.
A short distance outside the city were the Killing Fields, a comparatively tranquil place where mass graves are being reclaimed by nature and the skulls of their victims are enshrined in a grand stupa.
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