We didn’t have too much time this morning since we had to catch an afternoon flight to Vientiane (yay new country!). There are a large number of museums here dedicated to educating people on the history and horrors of the Pol Pot regime, and we decided that we would spend our morning visiting the Cheung Euk museum (also known as the Killing Fields) and S21.
Choeung Ek is actually one of about 300 areas around Cambodia called killing fields, where people that “opposed” the communist regime were sent to be killed. Scholars, children, diplomats, and basically city people in general, who didn’t really fit into the whole utopian farming community idea, were rounded up. It’s a very sad part of Cambodian history, and is actually fairly recent, considering the takeover of the Khmer Rouge was part of the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Choeung Ek is the most famous though, as the one closest to Phnom Penh and one of the biggest killing fields.
S21 is actually a high school turned prison and torture facility in the city. People from S21 were sent to Choeung Ek to be killed. Most people visit both museums to see the full extent if the brutality that occurred.
I won’t go into too much of the history that the museums cover, but overall it was very interesting to learn about history that isn’t really covered in school. The most that you generally hear about is the Vietnam War in terms of more recent SEA conflicts, even when I took World History AP (high school seems so long ago..). In any case, it’s a good place to visit because not only is it an eye opening experience, but it is also just so different being there. It seems a lot more real, and the impact is stronger than say, visiting the Holocaust Museum in LA.
After a serious morning, it was off for some tasty lunching and then off to the airport. There was a bit of confusion at first because we had booked our flights from Phnom Pehn (ps, there’s no wifi until you get upstairs) to Vientiane under Lao Airlines, but our flight was actually with Vietnam Airlines. Maybe they’re the same company?
We went upstairs and got fried wontons and beer (last chance for Angkor beer) and chocolate (obviously we just wanted to indulge or something), went all out fat fat fat and hopped on the plane. Asian flights are seriously the best when it comes to service. We got snacks halfway through the flight, with salad, pasta, cold cut meat, bread, and fruit (ok it was a western meal). The flight was quite lovely, we landed and got our visas ($35, with the US being one of the most expensive countries to get a visa for, only second to Canada), and headed out.
It was late at night, we chilled in the hostel, and planned out the rest of our trip. It was a bit of a slow day, and I was glad to be in Laos. Our initial impression of it was a more quiet Taiwan city, nice and clean. Cambodia was getting too sad for me…
In terms of currency, some places will take USD and baht, but you’re better off just getting Lao Kip. Most people here use it. If you do pay in dollars though, the general exchange rate is about 7500 to 8000 kip per dollar. Because of the fluctuation, you just guesstimate the conversion. People aren’t picky about it. Just make sure not to get too much kip because you can’t really use it anywhere else, though it’s probably easier to exchange out than riel. ATMs will dispense a max of 700,000 kip in a single transaction.