The first task on 19th June was to organise getting my Vietnamese transit visa which, in turn, apparently required a ticket out of Vietnam in order obtain it. However there was a rather large problem in that the Vietnam Airlines office was totally unable to sell me a Saigon to Manila air ticket.

I headed to the Vietnamese embassy anyway, and fortunately they were sympathetic and said that they could issue me with a 4 day transit visa, but told me to call the airline office in Saigon in order to make a flight reservation. It will be my responsibility to be out of Vietnam before the visa expires… or else! They explained that they couldn’t give me a tourist visa because tourism was temporarily suspended due to the COMECON meeting in Vietnam (this being the international club of Communist countries, let by the Soviet Union).

In the afternoon I managed to call Vietnam Airlines in Saigon, and get on the waiting list for the flight next Tuesday (25th). Better than nothing – maybe other options will materialise when I reach Saigon. After writing a whole load of postcards I later headed out for some dinner up the road. To come back I got a samlor (cycle taxi). In Cambodia the samlors have the driver behind, and the passenger at the front, ready to absorb impact if there is a collision. And that’s exactly what happened…

Just before reaching the hotel, my samlor driver made a sudden unannounced turn, straight into the path of a motorbike. This then slammed into us, knocking the samlor on its side, and sending me flying. I was furious with my driver because it was clearly his fault. I told him what I thought of him while I was lying dazed in the road. Eventually I got to my feet and walked back to the hotel with some bruises and some little cuts on my nose and cheek.

My nose was still sore in the morning (20th). I decided to visit the Royal Palace. Today’s samlor driver seemed to have no idea how to get to Phnom Penh’s main tourist attraction, but figured it out eventually. He was probably from out of town and, as we know, there are no tourists…

I had needed to go and obtain a special permit to be allowed into the Silver Pagoda, which is only open 3 days a week. But it was truly spectacular with its solid silver floor. Beautiful murals of the Hindu Ramayana Epic are on the walls. For a while it seemed like I was the only tourist (yet again) but then I came across a noisy group of Russian schoolkids who had presumably arrived on the Aeroflot flight. I walked back along the river to the hotel.

After lunch I went to the Vietnamese embassy, and to my relief my passport was ready with the visa. I decided to go and get my bus ticket for Saigon with the help of the GDT office (the General Directorate of Tourism seem to be making an effort to smooth the way for foreign visitors – several things I have done would have been a lot harder without them).

Next came something that was more of a pilgrimage – a total contrast from the morning’s tour of the cultural riches of the country. About 15km from the city are the infamous “Killing Fields” of Choeung Ek, where nearly 20,000 people are thought to have been systematically murdered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The Cambodian genocide was particularly insane. Rather than “ethnic cleansing”, it targeted the country’s own educated people. Those who spoke a foreign language, wore glasses, were middle class, or appeared in some way intellectual. “Suspects” were rounded up, tortured to find out who their intellectual friends were. Many in the capital ended up at Choeung Ek , their bodies then thrown into pits. These have since be exhumed… to some extent… in order to memorialize the victims.

WARNING: Readers of a particularly delicate nature may want to skip the next 2 photo galleries, and fast-forward to the monk on the motorbike…

The pits where bodies were thrown have been left as they were after the skulls had been recovered. Bone fragments are all over the place along with tattered bits of clothing. Around 8000 skulls have been collected at the site, and placed in a memorial that is in the form of a glass-sided tower.

The skulls have all been arranged facing outwards – they seem to be gazing over the peaceful green fields to the horizon – still silently searching for the help that didn’t reach them. I sat for a while near the memorial, unable to comprehend.

Heading back to the centre of the city, I stopped by the Independence Monument.

This features on at least 2 of the country’s bank notes.

Later I went to visit a Buddha factory – I didn’t realise there were such things, but logically there must be… where else would Buddhas get made? At the end of the afternoon I headed to a recommended place to eat, that was actually inside the Faculty of Medicine at the university.