Phloem Pen

Lonely planet is a liar. When we reached Cambodia's capital city, we took a tuk tuk (taxi) to the lake area where the backpackers hostels should be located. We got there - a dead end street with narcs fighting, one bleeding from the head, and a heavy steel gate that suddenly opened - the hostel's entrance. Casino-like lights shined from the inside, and we quickly walked in. A stinky place, literally, with some Cambodians and one Dutch guy sitting on a pool table and laughing, the Dutch guy cheerfully explained to us that some locals where injecting heroin and that the hostel's guard called security but we have nothing to worry about - it's a good place, oh, and the lake has been dried, they are building a casino there now. We stayed there one night - the room had no hot water and everything looked like a scene from the movie "fight club", the breakfast was really good though. Phloem Pen's main attraction is learning about Cambodia's history - a genocide happened here since 1975, lead by a guy named Pol Pot, a fun fact about him is that before he became a mass murderer he studied electrical engineering and he was also a teacher at some point. The sight seeing by itself is not so exciting but we bought talking earphones and listened to the stories and history while walking around the famous killing fields. It's shocking to hear how similar some of their stories are to our holocaust stories. Pol Pot killed 3 million of his own, without a racist theory to back him up, he only called them traitors, and built a killing system, maybe more brutal than the nazis, his soldiers killed babies by smashing them into trees, with knives and machetes, and with bare hands, bullets were too expensive. After 1979 something happened, we didn't understand what, he was apparently overtaken and lived in the forest, coming out for battles every once in a while, but was also given a chair in the UN and declared as a legit leader by the western countries - a piece of history worth to be more deeply studied. He died at the age of 82, had a happy life, married twice. On the way back we saw a half filled stadium, we asked our driver what was going on, and not knowing how to answer he just took us there. At the entranced I asked a guy that just got off there too what was going on, and he told us it was the Asian soccer championship! Mianmar versus Thailand, and it costs 50 cents to enter, we asked to join him and he agreed, and together we watched the championship, but Cambodia was not playing, and it was for players up to the age of 21, so the stadium was only half full. Nevertheless we enjoyed the game, Mianmar won, and the team was awarded 20,000 dollars (!!!!) from Cambodia's president. At night we went to hang out on the other side of town by the river, and later that night took a night bus to Siem Reap (which we heard it was completely flooded the day before).