Phnom Penh had all your senses in a knot, and the mind mad and the heart sad, and then a backflip and a twist and suddenly everything at ease and in peace. Both the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng, the school turned prison turned Genocide Museum, were a dose of terror straight to the heart – a powerful reminder of the unfathomable abysses of human nature. The Buddhist temples and monks by the Mekong were the yang to that yin. In-between: above all, dizzying peculiarities and surreal memory-moments. Like someone sniffing glue and blowing it in my face in the middle of the promenade. Or the skillful bag snatchers disappearing into the night on their scooter while my short-term friend was frozen in time, muscle and brain, waiting for her conscious to catch up with the scene. It was the first time I had seen someone literally speechless. Phnom Penh was an unlikely place, and you could only believe it from the inside.