Today we did a tour of Phnom Penh by tuk tuk.

First we went to the killing fields where the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's executed thousands of Cambodians in their bid for a pure race of proletariat.

It was a moving and tragic place.

Since 1979 when the Khmer Rouge fled, pits of mass graves have been excavated there, uncovering approximately 89000 bodies (including 9 westerners).

Originally a cemetery for the Chinese the Khmer Rouge turned this place into a hidden death camp where Cambodians were brutally beaten to death and thrown into mass graves.

Men, women, children and babies were disguarded with no respect for life.

It was so sad to be there.

Different places had placards explaining what used to be there. For example, one board declared 'this os the place where every detainee would be fully documented and processed for the Khmer Rouge loved detailed records.

Another sign announced 'this is the place where detainees were beaten with all manner of weapons until they died. (Bullets were expensive and the Khmer Rouge used anything to hand, including farming equipment).

At one tree, called the magic tree, the sign told us that rather than good magic, this tree had speakers hung from it playing loud music at night to cover the sound of screaming from those either being killed or waiting the night in makeshift huts to be killed in the morning (numbers kept increasing during the camp's existence meaning some had to wait to be killed despite the Khmer Rouge's goal of killing detainees on the same day of arrival).

At the centre of the place is a stupa housing skulls, remnants of clothing and other bone fragments of victims.

The killing fields is a terrible and recent reminder of what a country and it's leaders can do to its people and Rob and I walked around there listening to the earphone guides in silence.

After the killing fields we went to the Genocide museum. This museum was the infamous prison code named S-21 outside of Phnom Penh which was turned from a school into a place of torture and imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.

Many of the inmates were sent from here to the killing fields for execution.

The Genocide museum was harrowing.

Row upon row of photos of inmates lined boards and prison cell upon prison cell lined old school rooms.

These prison cells were tiny. Some made of hastily built brick and others, even smaller made of wood.

The Khmer Rouge were merciless here. All forms of terrible torture was performed all in the so called name of equality and independence of Cambodia.

Both the killing fields and museum built a tragic picture of the terrible atrocities faced by the Cambodian people only 36 years ago.

It felt almost disrespectful to go on to other places of interest after visiting these places of tragedy, though thankfully our tour then took us to places of celebration of Cambodian history.

Our next visit was to the Royal Palace.

Resplendent in its architecture, the Palace grounds encompasses numerous buildings, each of which housed temples, Buddhas, precious gifts and other items of Royal history.

The silver pagoda has a floor made of pure silver tiles, each weighing 1kg. In this pagoda are numerous presentation cases each displaying hundreds of pure silver or gold Buddahs, bowls and other items.

From the Palace we went just a few hundred metres and arrived at the National Museum.

Despite racing around here we saw amazing pieces from 300BCE through to more recent historical items from 100 years ago.

Many of the items here were from Angkor Wat, a place Rob and I are very much looking forward to visiting in a few days time.

All in all, our tour was a great introduction to Cambodia.

Whilst boarding Vietnam, it's architecture is very different and easily identifiable as Cambodian.

After a quick bite to eat after our day of touring Rob and I raced to the hotel where we were picked up to take the 17:45 bus to Sihanoukville.

This bus ride was surprisingly ok. The roads were not too bumpy and the bus showed DVDs of martial arts films (and Rambo!) with the most hilarious translation in English subtitles!

Having arrived at the bus station at 22:45 (more a driveway really) 5 or 6 men with tuk tuks all vie to take you to a hotel.

Having agreed a price Rob and I were driven to a hotel which was shut so as we were tired we settled on a nice looking one that was $30 (our most expensive yet).

Both shattered we dumped our stuff in our rather nice hotel room, cracked open a beer and threw ourselves on our beds to watch the end of some film.

Tomorrow we hit the beach and have a blissful day of rest!!!