Saturday 27th October

So we ended up spending 4 days in Sihanoukville as we were a little bit poorly. It sucked as we were both really ill and barely left the room the whole time except to go on a water run. Only news was we went out for an awesome meal on the last night at New Sea View Villa. They do a deal where you get 2 starters and 2 mains for 2 people for $10, the food was epic. I had the tuna and Matt had the Swordfish, it was definitely some of the tastiest fish I have ever had. I think it also tasted amazing as we had barely eaten for 3 days. We had 3 courses, little bit over the top, but it was so good.

We also sorted out our Visas for Vietnam, it was so straight forward we just jumped in the most pimpin tuk tuk I've ever seen (check out the pics) and it took about 10 minutes and $45 and we now have 1 month visas for Vietnam.

Anyway we are now in Phnom Penh, we ended up getting a mini bus this time as it takes 3 hours rather than the usual 5-6 hours on the public bus. It also worked out cheaper as she only charged us for 1 ticket, which was pretty sweet. Also satisfying as everyone is always trying to rip you off, so it's nice to get something for free for a change.

So, Phnom Penh...well we actually really like it. For a capital city it's pretty cool, it has bags of atmosphere and is pretty crazy but not in a Bangkok kind of way.

We managed to find a nice guesthouse called Sary which is close to the river. We dumped our bags and went for an explore. It's really nice just to walk around as there is loads happening on every street. We grabbed some lunch and then headed to the Royal Palace. We are a bit blonde because all week it has been all over the tv about the kings father passing and all of the celebrations and mourning that has taken place, but it didn't even cross our mind that the Palace would be closed even though we knew his body is being kept there for 3 months. So we just had to have a walk around the outside and admire it from afar, there were so many mourners and thousands of flowers it was quite a sight. After this we checked out some of the local temples and even had a chat with a monk. I am always a bit nervous at first as I never know whether or not you are supposed to talk to them, but he started chatting away so I thought might as well. He was so lovely and was telling us about his trip to Angkor Wat.

In the evening we headed out to watch some football at an Irish bar and have a few cheap beers during Happy Hour. We then headed to Memphis Pub to watch a live band, they didn't come on until late and weren't fantastic so we stayed for a few songs and then called it a night.

Sunday 28th October

Today we booked the guesthouses Tuk Tuk Driver, Ronnie for the day to take us to S.21 & the Killing Fields. We headed to S.21 first (Tuol Sleng Museum) it was only $2 to get in and it was pretty busy. For those of you that haven't heard about S.21 here is a quick history lesson.

S.21 was created on orders of Pol Pot in 1975 under the Khmer Rouge Regime & designed for detention, interrogation, torture & killing of prisoners. It was previously a school but was turned into a prison. They would take people here and torture them until they confessed to being part of the CIA or KGB, I doubt any of them were but they would confess as they were tortured so horrifically. They estimate that around 20,000 people (including women & children) were tortured and killed at S.21 in 3 years. In total it's estimated that almost 3 million people lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge Regime.

So we had a look around the various buildings that make up S.21, the first one was setup into interrogation & torture rooms. They even put pictures up on the wall, its pretty horrendous to see. The other buildings were setup as cells, some were bricks and some were wood. They were tiny, it was quite scary just walking around them. They had hundred of pictures up of all of the prisoners, some of them were just little children. They also showed pictures of them after they had been tortured and were dead, this trip is definitely not for the faint hearted. We left feeling very sombre and jumped in the Tuk Tuk to go the 15km out of the city to the Killing fields.

Now I thought the roads in Thailand & Laos were pretty scary, but Cambodia puts them to shame. I literally thought I was going to die about 4 times. Once a car just pulled across the road in front of us, a bike nearly went into the side of us and we actually scraped against a big lorry.

After a very hairy ride, we got to the killing fields. We got a free audio guide, which was super helpful. Again it was a big eye opener but really sad. We walked past a lot of mass graves some holding up to 400 bodies. Nearly all of them have now been excavated and around 9,000 skulls are held in the memorial stupa to honour those that died. Apparently they have care takers that go around the ground every few months collecting teeth, bone fragment and pieces of clothes that come up to the surface after rain. As we were walking around you could even see some teeth and bones in some of the graves. It was pretty grim. The worse thing that we saw was the 'killing tree' it was next to a mass grave where they found 160 bodies of women and children. Apparently the guards would grab the babies by the legs and kill them by bashing their heads against the tree before throwing them into the mass grave. So sick. Sorry if any of you were eating lunch whilst reading this.

I am glad we went despite finding it pretty horrific and depressing, it's good to know the history behind the country even if it isn't nice. In the evening we headed out to get some traditional Cambodia grub as it's our last night in this lovely country. Tomorrow we are heading to Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC) in Vietnam. We have probably been looking forward to Vietnam the most, so are very excited. Although we have heard the roads are even worse over there. We are also going to be seeing Suzanne and Brett on the 30th, so will have some travelling buddies for a bit, I think they have around 2 months in Asia. Can't wait to see you guys.

Hope everyone is well back home, missing you all loads. Next Blog will be from Vietnam. Yay.

Lots of Love Carly & Matt x x x

Modes of Transport so far - 2 planes, 1 Taxi, 9 Tuk Tuks, 2 VIP Bus, 2 shared taxis, 5 minivans, 2 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 3 ferries, 2 pickup trucks, 1 sleeper bus, 1 kayak, 1 moto

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor & Klang

Miles Travelled - 9,035