After a decent bus journey across the Vietnamese border into Cambodia we landed at Phnom Penh, the capital 'city'. Cambodia is sooo much different to Vietnam, a very dry and dusty looking country that is not very wealthy but the people there were friendly. We stayed at one of the popular hostels, the Mad Monkey and met up with Ash, Flo and Ash's friends James and Dan. James was a friend from back home but lived in Japan and was on holiday, and Dan was a friend who Ash had met in Thailand. They were both very interesting people... Totally different from each other like. James was like having the sky news walking around with you. He was very keen on history and had sooo much knowledge. A very interesting and intellectual guy to travel with, especially with all the Khmer Rouge genocide that had happened in Cambodia. It was like having a personal tour guide on hand!! It was awesome. Dan on the other hand was your typical young piss head backpacker haha... In a good way that is ☺️ He blended in well with us lot haha.

Speaking of alcohol, on the first night it was free beer in the bar until the barrel had gone! Cause there wasn't many in either, we practically finished the barrel between us and had a free night out!! Brilliant start to Cambodia! The next day we headed to the palace and did some sightseeing around the city. It wasn't your average city... Quite scruffy and run down but the palace was a stark contrast to this. It was a beautiful place to explore. Huge gold buildings, gorgeous gardens you could walk around, temples you could visit and it was very cultural!

We booked ourself a couple of tuk tuks for the next day to head to the S21 prison & the killing fields. We also met up with Alessandro, the Italian guy we met in Vietnam who came with us.

Wow where do I start with this day!!

What an emotional day... For those who know little about Cambodian history, here's a little run down of events. What makes it even worse is the fact that it only happened 35 years ago and the devastation of events is still very fresh in Cambodia and Cambodian families.

Basically Pol Pot led a party from 1975 - 1979 which involved the killing of millions of people within Cambodia. The potty leader wanted to take Cambodia back to basics with agricultural reform, therefore murdered all intellectual people including people who had been to school, doctors, nurses, teachers along with all their family. He didn't want anyone connected to the victims alive in case they turned against him later in life. To sum up the ratio of this mass murdering spree, it equalled to 1 in 4 people being murdered, a quarter of the Cambodian population! It's hard to believe something like this could happen but no one was allowed in or out of the country, things were kept hidden and people had no idea what was happening. It finally came to an end when Vietnam got wind and luckily intervened.

Our day of the S21 prison and the Killing fields gave us an insight into those horrible 4 years and what happened to those millions of poor victims behind closed doors. It's was a very somber but interesting day which left most of us speechless, especially after the killing fields. The events are still so fresh, pieces of bones & rags are still surfacing from the ground which are very visible & a little surreal. During the S21 visit, I guided Alessandro around and explained everything we could see to him. (If you haven't read my previous blog, Alessandro is fully blind). I took him in rooms and described items still present, read articles to him and did my best to guide him so he could feel the same as what we did. It was actually a very satisfying feeling. The audio players at the killing fields did the job there, plus it was in Italian, his own language, so he definitely would have had the same experience as what we did. A quite upsetting one. I feel like it's disrespectful to write down exactly what we saw plus I don't think many of you would appreciate reading it. Plus it's not something I will forget so I don't need to write it down for myself. If you've ever been to the killing fields, you will totally understand where I am coming from with this.

That evening we headed out for drinks but didn't have a late one as we was up in the morning for our next coach journey.

Next stop Battenbang...