Portrait of a Phnom Penh Tourist

I need to get better at sharing links to Facebook when I post new photos there. It takes a while to load each individually on this blog. However, glimpses of my shining face - is it delight at being in Cambodia, or is it just sweat? - are only a click away. Here's my first photo album, entitled "My New Life." Others, courtesy of my roomie Sarah, are below. We and several friends declared Friday, September 18, to be our official "Phnom Penh Tourist Day." (It was a national holiday due to Pchum Ben festivities.)


Our first stop was the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, converted from a school during the Khmer Rouge atrocities. It looks eerily similar to other local schools, and they've changed hardly anything inside since the prison stopped operating. But apparently it's been cleaned up a bit in recent years.

Each of its 20,000 prisoners was subjected to these rules upon arrival. Seven survived. Tearey, a Khmer-American woman who works at Logos, was with us and told us many stories from her childhood fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the jungle. It was really powerful - I hadn't expected her to open up so much.

One of dozens of torture rooms, with shackles, a box that served as a toilet, and a food dish.

Each room in this corridor held 16 cells, about 2 feet wide. The cells, like the rooms, have no doors, because there was nowhere to escape to.

Startlingly bright and cheerful after Tuol Sleng, our next stop was the King's Palace and the Silver Pagoda. Apparently the king still lives there, but tourists are only permitted to view the grounds outside.

Susie could feel her heart take wing when she discovered the shrubbery!

Left to right: Susie, me, Sarah