Cambodia. Already, I'm in love with this country. When it's said that people can really make a place, I really believe it here. The Cambodians are such nice people. They're so kind, generous and always want to help. Even if you don't want to buy something from them or you're choosing somewhere different to eat or stay the night, they just shake your hand, smile and say goodbye. I'm sure they're a few rocks in a pile of diamonds but so far this country is glistening.

After a very sweet bus lady helped us with stress free boarder crossing from Vietnam to Cambodia. We arrived in Phnom Penh. The capital of Cambodia. The five of us jumped in a tuk tuk and headed to The White Rabbit, our hostel for the night. From the outside it looked nice, the dorms were a different story; boiling hot, dirty sheets and footprints on the supposedly complimentary wash towels. It might sound like I'm whinging but I'm not, this is the stuff I prepared myself for, it's been like this before and we've turned our noses up at it but maybe now, after 140 days of travelling, I'm a traveller. We showered up in the bathrooms with no light; broken lightbulb.. Then headed out for dinner. We were all starving, the reception couldn't really grasp what we were asking when we asked for restaurant recommendations, so we just went on a walk to see what we could find. Bad mistake, we ended up in a restaurant that was pretty poor food, none of us finished our meals. We just wanted to leave. It's a shame because it was our first meal here, although none of us choose Cambodian food, I think we all went for a variety of Thai food. Maybe because none of us was really sure what Cambodian food consisted of? We needed to do some research into it before we next ate. We then spent the night back at the hostel, watching pirated DVDs and eating snacks from the mini mart.

The nights sleep was a sweaty one but we managed to have a long lay in. Crista and Nelen went to visit the Cambodian killing fields today because they only had a day in the city before they headed south. More on the killing fields later. We didn't go with them because we were waiting for our new visitors to arrive the next day. Kate's lovely sister, Alice and Liv's friend from home was coming out for a holiday and are travelling through Cambodia with us. Because of this, us three decided to have a chilled day by a pool so we could discover the city as a group tomorrow. Our trusty lonely planet suggested a few hotels that you could pay a fee to use their pool facilities, so it was obviously a common thing. We tuk tuk'ed to a posh hotel and sunbathed all day. We had to move hostel rooms that day because there wasn't availability in the room we was in. We carted our bags up to the top floor, which ended up being exactly that, a floor! A room with 5 mattresses on the floor, basic but it was $3 a night so I wasn't complaining, a bed for under £2. While we're on the subject of money, let me brief you on the currency situation here. They work with two currencies. US Dollars and Cambodian Riel; the cash points spits out dollars but once you pay for something, you get the change in Riel. Meaning you're constantly working with two currencies. It's fun when you're trying to work out a group bill for food or a tuk tuk journey. We've mastered it down to 4,000 riel equalling to a dollar. Yup, as I said fun. We met back up with Crista and Nelen and went for dinner. Decided on a restaurant underneath the Top Banana hostel, you got 10% off if you were staying at TB hostel and we were moving there tomorrow so figured it wasn't to cheeky to say we already was to get the discount. I had a salad, but this wasn't any old salad, this was a create your own salad. And I must say it was better then 'Chopped'; this will probably only make sense to my fellow Canary Wharf'ers. It was $4.50, so quite expensive for a backpacker meal because it cost more then my bed that night but it was so so good. Although not sure how 'Cambodian' a build your own salad is. Shhh, it was nice and refreshing not to be bloated from an overload of rice/noodle carb. We visited the top banana rooftop bar to get a feel for the hostel and the nightlife in Cams, it was cool, low lights, good music, big sofas and cushions and apparently the best backpacker bar in town.

The next morning, it was an early start for Crista and Nelen, they had a 6.30am bus to start their journey south to Koh Rong. I woke up and said goodbye on behalf of our triangle. It was so stifling in our room, I had to have a cold shower before going back to bed again. After another long lay in, we pulled our hungover heads out of bed, packed the rucksacks for the millionth time and headed to Top Banana. On the way over there the girls asked me if I saw the cats last night, I was oblivious but apparently there was two cats playing around in the room in the night, Liv thought they were giant rats running around haha glad I didn't see them. The rooms at TB were laavely, an 8 person bunk bed dorm, the beds were bigger then a single too, great starfishing opportunities there but the best thing was THE AIR CON. The room was like a freezer, exactly what we needed when the weather was 37 degrees of still heat outside. It was impossible to be in the sun in that heat, we were sweating buckets, even in the restaurant with fans pointing toward us. We went back to the restaurant under the hostel for brunch; we couldn't fault the place, great food, great waitresses with great advice about Phnom Penh and tips on the local lingo plus 10% off. Win win. The tried my first Cambodian dish, a Khmer curry, it tasted the same as lots of other coconut milk curries I'd had but it was lovely - and it was served in an empty coconut shell and the rice had been moulded into a heart shape, awww. The waitress told us to go to the 'Russian Market', we joked about it not being full of Russians, but bless her she didn't follow the joke. We spent most of the afternoon wandering around the little stalls, looking for big baggy clothes to cover us up in India (I found a stall that sold packets of post it notes in little books, I was in my element!!). We came across a nail bar stall, there was four women sitting on the floor back to back with lots of women sitting on mini stalls being pampered. Liv asked how much, $2, absolute bargain. Girls - could you imagine getting a pedicure for £1.30 back home. No chance. I needed to buy flip flops before we could have them done though. I had been living in my 'Toms' since we left Hue in Vietnam, someone broke them in the dorm and I hadn't been able to replace them in Nam because the sizes were to small and I refused to buy men's ones haha. It was a fun experience sitting with the locals and have them giggle at us when we tried to explain what we wanted. We all left with pretty tootsies, although they looked a but weird too, I haven't worn nail polish since I left so it was odd to see colour on them again. We needed a refreshment after the hours of trailing around the INDOOR market. We tuk tuk'ed to a cafe called 'Friends', it was run by a charity foundation that took kids off the street, taught them a trade and trained them up to work in the restaurant and the neighbouring 'Friends' shop. It was a little bit pricey but worth it knowing it was going to a good organisation. Plus I had sweet potato fries with curry mayonnaise, woah, the closest I was getting to chips and curry sauce back home but they were amazing. The rest of the night was a chilled one, pottered down to Samarky's for a 10% off salad. Watched ep 1 of the final series of The Wire. Nice shower and napped while the girls went to pick up Lora and Alice from the airport. I was napping when the lovely Alice Vidal came and tapped me awake, quickly followed by cuddles in bed. It was so lovely to see her and have a catch up. She even brought me presents; four new pairs of knickers, they were like gold to me, having the same bunch of pants this whole time gets so boring. Even did a little dance for the girls in my hot new pants. Alice also delivered a package from my two besties from home. They sent me two gorgeous new t-shirts, two magazines (Heat and Closer, dribble) and my favourite chocolate bars, peanut butter kitkat and a caramel bar, plus a lovely letter from each off them. I had been looking forward to this package for weeks, miss them so much, the bed time reading was sad but lovely. Liv's mum sent her a package out with Lora too, which contained India supplies, the India Lonely Planet plus mini eggs for Easter, thanks Debbie!! We had one drink at the rooftop bar then we all needed to crash out in bed, seen as it was about 3.30am by that point.

The following morning we slept in longer then we should've, made it down to Samarky's for brunch and jumped in a tuk tuk onto The Choeung Ek Genocidal centre, also known as 'The Killing Fields'. It's an audio tour of the grounds where Cambodians were brought to be killed during the Khmer Rouge movement in 1975. We always had this down as a place to visit while we were in Cambodia but it was hard to prepare ourselves for what we was about to hear and see. The audio tour was spoken by one of the survivors of the 'movement' which really brought it home to us to hear his personal experience of pain and grief. They also had interviews with other survivors, hearing what they did to women and children was horrific. And to think it was all happening less then 40 years ago. Walking around the site, you could still see bones and teeth protruding through the grounds of the grave pits, they said they still have remains rise through the mud after it rains. The grave pits were segregated by how they were killed either through chemical substances or beheading etc then into their sex and sometimes age. Then there was 'that' tree, named the killing tree, this is where mothers and their children were brought, women forced to watch their children be killed before they were then killed and buried with each other. The audio explained that the poor children were held by their ankles and hit against the trees until they died, this was only discovered when people found remains on the tree after the 'movement' had been overrun. During the tour, you came to a lake where the audio explained that there was still approximately 400 bodies that lays at the bottom but they have decided to leave them there to rest in peace. We then listened to a piece of classical music that was written in memory of the people who had their lives taken through this indescribable act of inhumanity. I think everyone that has been to the lake has sat, listened to the music, said a prayer for them and been brought to tears. Poll Pots, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, massacred 3,000,000 people, which was a quarter of the Cambodian population, all because he believed in creating an elite farming country. Killing anyone with an education or if they wore glasses or spoke out of turn or tried to fight against the 'movement'. Poll Pots took over towns and cities, forcing Cambodians to work 12 hour+ days with no food, water or breaks. Imagine the exhaustion and then add the 36 degree heat; a lot of people did die of starvation and fatigue. To think this was all going on while the UN had no idea it was happening. Poll Pots closed the boarders between Thailand, Laos and Cambodia so no one could get in or out. People from his party still attended UN meetings with no mention of the goings on in the country. It makes you wonder what else is happening in the world under the UNs 'watchful' eye; NK. Once the tour had finished we made our way to the S-21 prison; the prison is where Cambodians were sent to be tortured for information, to be disciplined or kept as prisoners before being sent to 'The Killing Fields'. The prison used to be a high school but, it was taken over and reformed in 1975 to serve another purpose. I almost found the prison harder to visit, seeing equipment they used, the torture chambers and the cells they were kept in. Plus photos of the people who had been there was displayed on the walls and stands in their memory, looking into their eyes, imagining what they had been through. There was even photos of some of their bodies after they had their lives taken from them. As I said before, indescribable act of inhumanity.

That evening we just went back to the dorm to have some alone time to reflect on what we'd seen and learnt today. That night was our last night in Phnom Penh, we wanted to get out of the Samarky's routine and so headed for some street food. We found a place that would do veggie stuff, when I say veggie stuff I mean fried rice, with an omelette but an omelette as you would imagine. It was in a cup, an egg, cooked in a cup. Interesting. The food was good, and cheap! I do enjoy going to the street vendors instead of restaurants, not only because the service is quicker haha but because you feel like your experiencing the country more, sitting with the locals, trying to explain our menu options when they don't speak in English. Great fun! The night was ended with drinks in Mad Monkeys and Top Banana then Kate, Alice and I having a party in the dorm room, luckily the other 3 guys were out and Laura and Liv was sitting upstairs chatting. The videos are pretty funny.

Up bright and early for our 6.30am bus, only 6 hours to the next destination.

Just why I think of it; I've noticed it throughout Asia but its amazing how people make the most of the space they have and how they create things with the materials they already have. It does make you think about life at home, and how mum always nags on about waste. I understand it more now. Although clearing other people's plates at dinner shouldn't come under this, that needs to stop. Anyway, not sure why I thought to mention that but I was thinking of it the other day.

We were now heading to Koh Rong so Alice and Laura could get some beach time on their holiday with us. Thanks Phnom Penh, for a lovely introduction to your country, I'm excited to explore the wonders over the next few weeks.