Monday, June 9, 2008

Today I found 1 cent . . a penny. I also found 1 foreign coin, which sadly will not count toward the daily totals.

Phnom Penh is one of those cities that it would be tough to describe and sell someone on. It can probably only be appreciated by a visit. It’s dirty, very poor, and doesn’t have any particular features that would define it. However, the people there have an incredible spirit and I really did like my visit here.

On the tough side of things, change wise, there are no coins in circulation in Cambodia! The basic currency is the Riel, which exchanges against the dollar at approximately 4,000 to one. Lucky for me I did manage to find a 1,000 Riel bill at the Killing Fields outside of the city (more on that in a minute) and a US penny at a restaurant that we ate at in the evening.

I have always been a history buff (majored in it in college) so one of the places that I wanted to visit were the Killing Fields. For those not up on Cambodian history the Killing Fields could be equated to Auschwitz in Germany. In the late 1970’s the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia and promptly executed approximately two million of the seven million residents of Cambodia.

It is tough to describe the scene at the Killing Field that I visited (sadly there are multiple sights that are coined Killing Fields around Cambodia). Walk around and you can see mass graves and even more disturbing there are still human bones, teeth, and clothes that stick up from the ground.

The picture today, not for the timid, is a memorial that was built on the sight of the Killing Field. A glass stupa (literally meaning heap where remains are stored) was built and filled with the skulls of many of the victims:


Trust me when I say that the picture does not do justice to what a strikingly moving sight this actually was.

Totals for the day: 1 cent (and 1 foreign coin)
Race Totals: $661.72