Hey, since we last wrote a blog we have now moved on from Saigon, Vietnam and have now been in Cambodia for 5 days.That has been spent by 2 days in Phnom Penh and 3 days Siem Reap.The first day that we arrived in Cambodia we checked into our hotel in Phnom Penh and went for a look around the city.We started by having a quiet walk along the Mekong River and then went to have a look at the Palace.After we had done our tourist stuff for the day we decided to go and visit a local orphanage and play with the children.Many of these kids had either lost their parents to HIV or they were killed in the Cambodian war.It was sad to visit these kids as they were just lovely and loved the attention.I decided to play football with the boys on the roof terrace while Belen was sitting in the classroom as some of the other kids were learning English and Japanese.The family that run the orphanage are not government funded, but they either raise the money themselves or through donations.They currently have a 3 storey flat where around 20 kids live.They also own a restaurant next to the orphanage.There business is a nonprofit organization and the purpose of the restaurant is to teach the children skills in the hospitality industry.It really is a great idea and the owner of the company is such a nice person.Later on that day we decided to walk to the local park where there were lots of wild monkeys roaming free.The monkeys would practically walk over your feet! It was a bit worrying as Monkeys are bad for carrying HIV and Rabies, so we tried to keep our distance.They really did live up to the saying "cheeky Monkey" as the park cleaners would put a load of rubbish in the bins and then five minutes later the monkeys would take everything back out again!!!They would normally be lucky and find a bit of mango or banana.

The next morning be boarded our tour bus and headed off to visit Poi Pol Prison where the Khamer Rouge kept Cambodians who were of an educated background, so that they could not create an uprising against their regime during the war.It was terrible to see the torture these people were put through. In most of the cells the beds and the prisoner's belongings were still there.The Khamer Rouge were basically terrorists who came to power and decided that they wanted to kill of any person with any slight level of intelligence, so that they could then brainwash all the remaining poor/un educated people into wanting the same future for Cambodia as they did.There dream was to only have 200,000 people remaining in the country.The prison guards in this prison would torture the prisoners into confessing that they were doctors or accountants or whatever their occupation was.After they had confessed they would tell them that if they told them the names and addresses of any of their work colleagues that they would let them live.Well this was a lie and they would kill the person and whoever he had mentioned also.It got worse though as they would also kill the person's family, as they believed that they may grow up educated.This meant even babies, who were held by their feet and battered against a tree which was called the child tree!!! After we had left the prison we went to visit the Killing fields, which is where all the murdered prisoners were buried.There were millions of bodies buried in these killing fields and sometimes they were even buried alive!!!This really was an awful place, as because of the floods a lot of the graves had risen and there were bones coming out of the soil everywhere.You had to walk on them as much as we tried not as there was no way around it.There was even fabric from the clothes of the victims coming out of the soil.I'm glad I have seen it, but would not recommend it for the faint hearted!

The following day we headed by plane to Siem Reap, which is the capital of Cambodia.Here we have 3 days to spend.Yesterday we went to visit Angkor watt.This is an ancient temple which many say is the 8th wonder of the world.I can see why they say this as it's really impressive. After Angkor Watt we headed to Ta Prom which is the temple where they filmed the first tomb raider movie starring Angelina Jolie.You will see from the pics just how nice this place was.

Cambodia is such a beautiful country and the people here are so nice.I have never felt so safe anywhere else in my life.Here are a few bits of information about Cambodia that you may not know:

Cambodia only has a population of around 8 million people because of the war.

The average salary for a Cambodian teacher is around 2 American dollars a day!

The currency used in Cambodia is American Dollars because there currency is so low a rate that you would get millions for about 10 dollars if not.

70% of the Cambodian population is under the age of 18!This is also because of the war!

In Cambodia the women greatly outweigh the men in numbers.This may also be because of the war, but not sure.

Prices in restaurants are a lot more expensive in due to the dollar being used.The cheapest thing on the menu never drops below 1dollar, so goodbye to 35 pence beer!!!

We have really enjoyed Cambodia and I think out of all the countries we have visited so far that this is the only one that I would love to come back to.Don't get me wrong the other countries have been great, but there is something about Cambodia that is special!!!We were in a shop the other day looking at DVD's.I had just bought a copied book about the Killing fields from a local child outside the shop.The girl working in shop had asked me not to buy from these children as Cambodians did not like the kids pestering foreigners to buy their stuff, as they felt that these people may go back to their home countries and tell people that Cambodians are really pushy and they felt threatened to buy stuff whilst they were there.Cambodians are so desperate for tourism to pick up in their country as they are desperate for a better life.

Tonight we are going to a local village to eat typical Cambodian food at a family's home.

Tomorrow we get back on bus to Bangkok, which should take us around 9 hours. We will spend two days in Thailand and then board our plane to Singapore.

We have now spent 3 days in Singapore but we were getting a bit bored of shopping and it was raining all the time!!!! although it was still very very hot! We decided to buy some flights to Phuket in the south of Thailand for 8 days, so thats where we are now. We have been here for 2 days and it is stinking hot and sunny. We will both have to watch as we are a bit fried!!! Phuket is a bit like the Ibiza of Thailand. In the day there are lots of lovely beaches and at night the place is full of lady boys!!! (Simon you will be happy to know that we have plenty pics of lady boys for you!) We went to the main strip last night and watched a lady boy show, which was a good laugh. I cant get over how much prostitution there is here. It seems every western man has a 17 year old Thai girl on his arm. We have booked 3 days in a hotel on the beach and then 5 days in Phuket city center. I think in the next couple of days we will be going on a day trip to the Phi Phi islands. Which are supposed to be out of this world.

I dont know what has been happening with our site over the last couple of days, but it seems to be up and running again, so we will try to get some more pics up soon.

ESPANOL

No me acuerdo que fue lo ulotimo que os conte! Camboya durante unos 6 dias. Nos gusto mucho. Fueron unos dias muy completos y sin parar ni un momento. Estuvimos en Phnom Phem unos dias y fuimos a ver unas carceles donde Khamer Rouge ejecuto mucha gente y luego tambien fuimos a un campo de concentracion donde mataron a mas gente y luego los enterraron con la ropa puesta y todo en fosas comunes. Fue un dia bastante triste. En el campo de concentracion podiamos ver huesos y ropa de la gente, ya que por las fuertes lluvias cada dos por tres aparecen mas cuerpos. El Khamer Rouge fue una dictadura en Camboya que se cargo a un monton de gente, fue peor que Hitler!! La poblacion en Camboya es bastante joven ya que se cargaron a la mayoria de la gente. Fue una visita muy interesante. Tambien fuimos a un orfanato, estuvimos jugando con los ninos etc. Habia mas pobreza en la calle que en vietnam, habia muchos ninos vendiendo libros y se peleaban entre unos y otros para que le compraras un libro. Me daba mucha pena. Despues nos pusimos de camino hacia Siemp Riep. Fue una pasada, ver el amanecer desde Angkor, o ir al templo donde Tomb Raider fue grabado, o por ejemplo ver un pueblo que vive en casas en el lago. Fuimos en barco por el lago y habia un monton de gente con lanchas. Las lanchas se acercaban al barco y los padres mandaban a los hijos a que se subiesen para vender bebidas y frutas. Tambien se subia con serpientes por si nos queriamos sacar una foto. Habia un nino de unos tres anos con una serpiente al cuello (ya vereis la foto). En las fotos vereis a ninos con unos peinados un tanto raro, es porque van a ser monjes. Cada familia normalmente elije a un hijo para que sea monje ( no tiene que ser para toda la vida). El ultimo dia de viaje fue un toston, tuvimos que ir en autobus asta tailandia, lo que era un toston era la carretera desde camboya. La carretera esta en muy mala situacion, hay muchos baches (mas bien agujeros). Segun dicen hay un aerolinea que soborna al gobierno para que no arreglen la carretera asi la gente va en avion. Pasamos dos dias mas en Tailandia, y luego a Singapore. En Singapore estuvimos tres dias. Me ha gustado es una ciudad muy moderna. Es mas caro, la comida esta muy buena. LLovio a ratos todos los dias pero hacia mucha calor. Decidimos ir a Phuket a tomar el sol! Ahora estamos en Phuket. El dia 17 vamos de vuelta a Singapore por un par de dias. Phuket esta bien, la playa es bonita y hace mucha calor. Tenemos pensado ir a un par de islas. No se que pasaba con nuestra pagina web pero ahora ya funciona. Besos nos vemos pronto!