phnom penh, cambodia.

In the middle of May I spent a quick few days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (I'm really behind on this whole blogging thing. Trying to catch up!) I had been traveling with Bex and Scarlett since Pai, but they were moving on to Koh Rong, an island in the south of Cambodia. So it was time to go separate ways, sadly, and I went on to Phnom Penh solo.

I was really looking forward to Phnom Penh, in a very morbid way, as it's home to the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields are just one of hundreds mass graves across the country that were used during the Cambodian genocide in the 70s. The day I went, I walked slowly and cried and couldn't take too many photos. What's below was 1000 times more disturbing in real life, and it felt surreal to think of the atrocities that occurred in such a beautiful area. It was a rough afternoon and it took me a few hours to recover. 

Later that night though I met some new friends and connected with a girl I'd also met in Pai, and we had a fun night out to distract ourselves from how sad we were feeling. I moved to a better hostel (I'd had more bad luck with the one I'd booked) and took lots of naps, watched some torrential rainfall, swam in the pool until midnight, and skipped the Genocide Museum. 

All in all, I'm so glad I got to see Phnom Penh and learn about its history. I had to leave early Saturday morning to catch my plane to Krabi -- back to Thailand to explore the southern islands! (And as soon as I got to my layover in Bangkok, I was so excited to see a 7-Eleven, which is why there's a photo of it below. 7-Eleven has everything you could ever want in Thailand, including  really cheap beer and delicious toasties. Ahem. I'd missed it sorely.) 

The rain followed me from Cambodia unfortunately, and the next long while I hardly saw any sun. Rainy island photos, coming up!