We took a tuk tuk from the bus drop off point to an area on the lake in Phnom Penh (which we had found out in China had been bought by a Korean company who were filling it in to build apartments) and booked into a guesthouse which had a bar which was on stilts over the lake! It was a stunning location, where we had a couple of drinks enjoying our surroundings.

We went out for tea and ended up bumping into two people off the Mekong delta tour (Charlotte and Steve) who had taken the fast boat and over a few beers and tea informed us that the upgrades were awful and the fast boat was cramped (haha being tight with money works!). After quite a late night we had decided that we would do nothing for our first full day n Phnom Penh.

The next day we got a tuk tuk out to the killing fields which has a monumnet with thousands upon thousands of skulls inside a tower (along with a load of clothes that had been found near the mass graves. This was an area where 'educated' (or deemed so?!) people were executed. If you wore glasses you were deemed educated?! amongst other things. Some of the pits were no bigger than a dinner table but had 200-300 bodies in them. There was probably 20 or more pis like this and there was an even bigger area which they had filled with water to preserve the dignity of the people still buried there. It was an incredibly harrowing place where over 30000 people were excuted.

We then got the tuk tuk to take us to Tuol Sleong Prison (also known as S21 under Khymer Rouge rule) which was a high school that the Khymer Rouge used to interogate and torture people, whole families sometimes. It has been left as it was found so the rooms where bodies were found still has the bed frames (that inmates were tired to while thay were beaten) and blood stains on the floor. If the killing fields were harrowing enough this was on another level. In each of these rooms a dead person was found and there was a pcture of how they were found. In the playground they found a pile of bodies which had been hung and just left where they fell when the rope was cut! They had covered all the windows with barbed wire to stop anybody jumping and trying to commit suicide, so that they could torture you into signing a confession- and then they would kill you, either there or at the killing fields. In some buildings they had the mugshots of all the inmates- over 30000 people were killed who had been to S21. Only 7 people who were inmates there survived and the head of the prison has just gone on trial and is charged with 29000 deaths.

It was truelyan eye opening experience seeing these places, especially S21 as so many pople died yet it was no bigger than a small primary school, and getting an idea of the scale of the massacre. It is truely horrible!!!!!!

Our final day in Phnom Penh was spent seeing the Royal Palace which was a beautiful set of buildings but there is not much to say about it as the pictures will do the talking for me. Although there was a building called the Silver Pagoda as the floor was made up of over 300 solid silver tls (hell to clean I can imagine.)

We also meant to go to the market so I could eat a tarantula but it was being renovated so was closed, which Sarah reckons was a sign from heaven(!) that I shouldn't try it......but I will!

The last thing I will mention is the heat. It is so hot that you look forward to an icy shower as it is the only time that you are not covered in sweat! At night time it is hotter than the hottest summer day in Britain but I think we are finally getting used to it!

I know that I am starting to ramble now but the biggest shame of Phnom Penh is that the lake is being filled in as watching the sun set over the lake with an icy cold beer is about as relaxing as anything can be! and beautiful to go with it. The guesthouses are great places and it seems a crime that soon non of it will be there anymore. I feel priveledged to have seen it whilst it still stands.

I almost forgot to mention that our geusthouse had a nightly 6pm showing of the killing fields. Having never seen it before I have now seen it twice in two days!