A city of sadness

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The traffic in Phnom Penhwas fascinating, as well as incredibly scary. The roads were always busy, even at night. There doesn’t seem to be any logical traffic pattern. Crossroads are a nightmare, they aren’t regulated, everyone just goes at the same time and somehow avoids crashing. A tuk-tuk driver taking Jack and I to our hotel, came to the back of standstill traffic, he avoided this by casually driving the wrong way up a one-way street full of cars driving straight towards us. We decided not to hire a mo-ped in Phnom Penh.

From Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields and the Museum of Genocide, one of the best but most depressing trips. Here we learnt about the unbelievable events that took place during the Cambodian Civil War. I felt really emotional at the Killing Fields witnessing the mass graves and thousands of preserved skulls. The museum was just as bad, seeing the torture cells and learning about how innocent victims were forced in to confessing to crimes which they hadn’t committed. As depressing as this trip was, it was an eye-opening experience of how tragic these events were and knowing it happened so recently is shocking.

During our time in Cambodia we have learnt that unfortunately child trafficking is still a major issue. Thankfully there are now several organisations and support groups in place, which aim to help and ultimately put a stop to this unacceptable behaviour, one of these being the Daughters of Cambodia. This restaurant/shop provides an exit for victims of trafficking in Cambodia by providing the girls with the necessary skills, training and jobs to move them away from sex-work and in to other careers. The organisation has done a great job helping these children and the restaurant is lovely!