Phnom Penh and the killing fields

Phnom Penh is not a big city, nor a great city. A lot of low rise buildings. After a six hour bus drive from Siem Reap, we were dropped in the centre of town. All the places on the quay that the lonely planet advised were full, so we decided to pick one of the not advertised simpler hotels overlooking the river. However, the room was cheap ($23) with a balcony overlooking the river and no (visible) bugs! While having dinner, we were (again) confronted with the poverty of Cambodia. Although we knew the children selling stuff on the streets of Bangkok and Saigon, the selling is different in Phnom Penh. In Bangkok a lot of kids go to school and sell stuff to foreigners. Here, the kids looked poor and were really pushing for each sell. It is not easy to explain, actually I don't know how to explain it, but this was 'real' poverty, the kids were really, really poor and needed to sell stuff. This is poverty and this is feeling guilt. The next day it got worse when we visited a temple and were stormed by kids poiting at their (empty) bellies to explain they were hungry. The touts and pimps were waitinga couple of meters away to take way the money...What to do? You know that if the kids don't make enough money, they may be beaten or not given food. But by giving them money and buying stuff from kids, you reenforce their function as an economic means, something to make money on. The rational thing is not to give anything and to deprive the pimps of income from the kids. When the kids don't make money, there is no use in using kids and the kids could go to school etc etc. However, this also means depriving the kids of food and who will send them to school? At first we didn't know, we then we gave some kids a little. Finally we decided to go for the rational way and not give anything to the kids. However, by going to places like the friends restaurant, an initiative to teach street kids how to work in a restaurant (they have other projects as well), we tried to at least help them a little. It remains a difficult issue though, especially if you walk past the Phnom Penh Cars shop, with all luxury cars including Landrovers, Hummers and Jaguars.

A visit to Phnom Penh just isn't complete without visiting the XXX prison and the killing fields memorial. The memorial is at the place where they took the prisioners from Phnom Penh, to execute them. Man, women and children.