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Nov.15 Today has been a strange day! First we went to the market to buy me a pair of cheap Chinese shoes - then Annemette - Alfeo - a newfound friend Dave - Perry - Kate & I walked down to S-21 (BirgitSusanne went visa hunting). S-21 or Tuol Sleng museum! Until 1975 it use to be a high school in Phnom Penh - but was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces & turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S-21).It became the largest such center of detention & torture in Cambodia. More than 17000 persons held at S-21 were taken to Choeung Ek (Killing Fields) & executed there. Those who died during torture at S-21 were buried in a mass grave at the prison ground. Like the Nazis the Khmer Rouge kept records of their barbarism - Each victim was photographed before & after being tortured - (some of these photos are now covering the walls from floor to ceiling in the museum - men - women - children - all these faces - knowing that they were going to die!). When the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh in 1979 - they only found 7 prisoners alive in S--21 - 14 others were tortured to death while the Vietnamese were closing in on the city. (From "Lonely Planet") S-21 looks like an ordinary concrete school - but it's insides tell you it isn't so because the main building is divided up in tiny little cells - in the south side wing ground floor each classroom shows a metal framed bed where the victims were strapped on while tortured - big black / white photos showed us how it went on (This was not a movie this was for real) Painting of how torture was done - torture machines - a big land map made of sculls - it was horrible & yet - I only had to look at it - I was not liiving in it. We were awful quiet coming out into the bright sunshine again - (I had this lotus flower string in my hair - & to this day I can't eat jasmine rice - drink jasmine tea or smell flowers that remind me of the lotus smell). We decided that we just as well could drive down to Killing fields so we went back to Capitol restaurant & hired a car with a driver. Here I sit right now - in front of the Pagoda of Death or the Memorial Stupa as it's called where more than 8000 sculls are arranged by sex & age visible behind clear glass. 129 mass graves more than 9000 people is buried out here - & the same is going on & on again somewhere on this planet - in x-Yugoslavia - in Rwanda - in ………… - will we never learn????????? When we came back to P.P - David had arrived from Saigon - I ate 1½ huge pieces of a "space cake" & became so stoned that I never been before & never will be ever again - That was not even funny!!!! Nov.16 Today we took David up to FCC (Foreign Correspondents' Club) to get a passport photo taken - they had moved the machine so a moped driver gave him a ride to another place - & returned with him so he could get a Lao visa too - David let them have his Australian passport - he's traveling to Cambodia on his Irish passport - he thinks that the Khmer Rouge will shoot him because he's from "Down Under" - we laughed & said that they don't ask for nationalities - they simply shoot because you are a "ferlang"! We met up with a lot of new & old friends( SallyAnn & Jim from Nha Trang - They were SO nice - I really like them) & had a funny evening on the deck at No.9 - drinking beer & laughing the night away!