Geographically, the distance from the Thai to the Cambodian capital is only just over 300 miles. This makes the difference in the sights you are confronted with there quite remarkable.
The short flight from Bangkok gives you a great view of the Mekong River from the air as you approach Phnom Penh.
Our first stop downtown in what is effectively still the city centre was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, scene of some of the most heinous crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge during its 4-year reign of terror from 1975-1979.
This site, which functioned for 4 years as a brutally sadistic interrogation centre and torture chamber, was a former high school converted into the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21). Its setting of classrooms and palm trees is particularly perverse, given the atrocities which occurred daily here.
The wooden frame which had originally been built for the purpose of students' physical recreation was used by the Khmer Rouge to extract confessions from inmates. Prisoners were hung upside down from the gallows with their hands tied behind their backs and they were lifted several times until they lost consciousness. To revive them, their heads were then dipped into one of the earthenware jars (pictured above) filled with human excrement, so that the interrogation could continue.
The torture system at Tuol Sleng was specifically designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were accused of. They were repeatedly coerced into implicating family members and friends as being fellow subversives. In turn, those named were then arrested, tortured and killed, allowing the perpetual cycle of mass murder to continue unabated.
The prison had a staff of over 1,700 Khmer Rouge cadres, many of whom were not much older than children. Many of their pictures are still on display today.
Exact numbers will never be known, but it is estimated that between 17,000 and 20,000 victims were incarcerated and butchered in Tuol Sleng during its gruesome existence. What is known for sure is that only 7 individuals survived their ordeal there. Each of them was kept alive due to a skill they possessed which was valued by their Khmer Rouge guards. During the day of our visit, 2 of the 3 still alive today were at the museum. Bou Meng, pictured above standing next to David and whose wife died in the jail, was spared due to his artistic ability.
Likewise, Chum Mey, who was a mechanic by trade, lived to see the camp's liberation thanks to his proficiency at repairing machinery.
Vann Nath, another of the 7 survivors, subsequently used his painting skills to visually recreate a multitude of the horrific scenes which he had personally witnessed. The sadistic nature of the Khmer Rouge knew no bounds, as children and even babies were subjected to the same degree of brutality as adults. We were to see the actual site of such atrocities later that day with our own eyes.
Sadly Vann Nath passed away in September, 2011.
Individual cells were barely 2 square metres in size and those imprisoned there were either shackled to the walls or the concrete floor.
Prisoners were routinely beaten and given electric shocks. Alternatively, other methods for extracting confessions from inmates including pulling out their fingernails, burning their flesh, suffocation with plastic bags, waterboarding and simulated drowning. Many of the actual implements of torture are still on display.
It is seemingly unimaginable given the scale of the crimes committed here, but sadly some visitors have to be reminded about the need to respect the victims in an appropriate manner. During my first visit here several years ago, I was shocked to experience some visitors making jokes about the torture implements used.
During its first year in existence, corpses from S21 were buried in the direct vicinity of the prison. By 1976, however, the number of victims exceeded the space available to dispose of the ever-increasing number of bodies.
Consequently, from this point on the Khmer Rouge began to transfer interrogated prisoners and their families to the Killing Fields of the Choeung Ek extermination centre 12 miles away, where their comrades completed their execution. Prisoners arrived in truckloads in the dead of night and they inevitably succumbed to their terrible fate while offering little resistance in their considerably weakened state.
Victims were killed just as brutally here. In order to save ammunition, executions were often conducted with poison, farm tools or sharpened bamboo sticks. A large number of mass graves containing a total of almost 9,000 corpses were discovered at Choeung Ek after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many other mass graves known to be situated near the site have yet to be excavated.
One of the most moving exhibits in Choeung Ek is the so-called Killing Tree. Just as depicted in Vann Nath's picture in Tuol Sleng, the Khmer Rouge took sadistic pleasure in smashing babies against this tree in full view of their mothers before then tossing the infants' shattered bodies into a grave.
The real number of landmine victims in Cambodia is impossible to calculate, but it is thought to be at least 50,000. There may even be as many as 6 million mines still lying unexploded in Cambodia and given that as much as 80% of the population still rely on subsistence farming to make a living, the number of victims continues to grow every year.
5,000 of the skulls of those victims murdered in the Killing Fields can be seen in the Buddhist stupa at the centre of the memorial.
Signs on display around the museum indicate that common access to firearms and explosives remains an on-going and widely accepted problem in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge uniform consisted of black garments, with officers wearing red chequered scarves.
Phnom Penh today is unquestionably a city of motorbikes. The wearing of helmets is not a recommendation which is adhered to by all and it is very common to see very young children sitting behind the handlebars together with their parents.
Four or five people often ride on a bike and sometimes the kids even wear pyjamas and sleep enroute.
After its accession to power in 1975, the Khmer Rouge almost succeeded in completely destroying Buddhism in Cambodia. However, it has since reestablished itself as the major state religion.
Tuk tuk is by far the easiest and most popular way to get around the capital.
We managed to find a great tuk tuk driver who gave us an excellent tour of the city.
In the evening we were dissuaded from stopping for an alfresco drink at some of the riverside watering holes due to the rats in evidence running between our feet when we tried to do so. Consequently, we put a few hundred metres between us and the waterfront until we found a bar where the company was considerably more hospitable.
David consumed more alcohol there than I'd ever seen him drink in such a short space of time. He then ended up spending most of the night in the toilet, supposedly due to the ice in the glassful of whiskey that he'd downed. His Irish humour never ceased to amaze me.
The tuk tuk drivers likewise found his T-shirt just as amusing.
With David badly in need of constant rehydration the next day, we spent our final few hours in Phnom Penh taking in the splendor of the Royal Palace.
The buildings date back to the 19th century and they are an excellent example of Khmer architecture.
The Silver Pagoda houses many national treasures such as gold and jewelled Buddha statues and it is the official temple of the King of Cambodia.
With our stay in Phnom Penh at an end, we headed to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
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