This isn't fair; Jenny gets to write about the fun stuff, and I get to write about the Khmer Rouge. Right, here we go... We set off from Don Khong in Laos, to head over the border into Cambodia. It's not an official border, making it rather confusing. We were told it was 'no problem!' by the lonely planet on one page, and 'don't cross here without a visa' on another. The foreign office say they are 'confused' about it, but that the border is most likely closed, so go by plane or into Vietnam instead. However, on the ground we were assured we could get across somehow. The problem was that we'd not bothered to get visas, and so were going to have to backtrack up to Pakse and fly out to Siem Reap. The thought depressed us so much that we jumped on a minibus charging over three times the going rate for the 25km crossing. We didn't care that the driver told us we'd 'maybe' get a visa, like only 'some people' do. We were told it would take three hours to cross and reach our destination, before taking a bus ourselves further into Cambodia. However, it took over 6 to reach this point, and then further 7 to reach Kompong Cham. The main reason for this was that we changed buses about 4 times, for what seemed like no reason at all. We kept driving off the highway down awful roads into the jungle, and then loading all our stuff onto other buses. We started to realise we were dealing with some dodgy characters, and that we were probably giving money to people traffickers or something. The second reason was that the roads are non-existent, and it's wet season just now...Really, the roads are shocking here. Our w***er of a 'tour guide' gave this as the official reason for us going so incredibly slowly. However, he couldn't explain why we kept diverting from the track and down boggy paths through the jungle, either swapping vehicles or rejoining the road a few miles on. We worked that out a little later... Anyway, for now, at the border our 'guide' asked for our passports, and some of us said we'd rather do it ourselves. He looked quite hurt at first, and I felt bad for implying that I didn't trust him. So I gave in. The more persistent went ahead and got their stamps themelves, whilst he explained that he would need to collect a fee for the stamps. $3 on top of the $20 for the visa. $2 for the stamps and a third dollar for something else. Evetually he slipped and said the extra dollar was for him (''and one for me!''; like we were stupid for not feeling compelled to pay him a dollar to carry our pasports a metre to the desk), and that the same would happen on the other side. By this time, most of us had actually got our stamps ourselves and grudgingly paid only $2 to the Lao officials. We somehow managed to do it ourselves. All that placing our passports down on desks; it's hard work. Anyway, he eventually got his dollar on either side, by exclaiming rather aggresively that if we didn't let him take care of the passports, he wouldn't let us on the bus (despite us paying $15 for the journey, which is a joke as it is). Who were we kidding? - we were in the middle of the jungle, with more chance of catching malaria than a bus back home. Ok, so we only lost out on $6, but it was the principle of it, and the threats, and how much of a w***er he was, and how much damage we were doing to the countries involved! Anyway, by the time we got to Strung Treng 3 hours late, we were totally knackered and decided to carry on with him and the bus to Khompong Cham. Again, he didn't give us much choice, etc etc. We realised well before Khompong Cham that the reason we were going so slow and over such awful roads, was that he had a chain of business interests running right the way through the two countries. We stopped at all his mates' shops and funnily enough at the end of the journey we ended up at his mate's hotel. He wouldn't tell us how to get to our chosen guesthouse, and just laughed at us. At this point we also found out that a Spanish couple had been promised they would be in Phnom Penh by the evening (only 2 more hours drive away), but instead they had to nap in Khompong Cham for the night. However, when the woman complained he laughed in her face about her being stupid, because she is from Spain. The boyfriend was a hero for not smacking him, but also quite sensible because the guy's associates were pretty menacing. We had no choice but to stay in the hotel as we couldn't arrange a taxi and there were no streetlights. So, we settled in to our wonderfully overpriced room, saying hello to the friendly prostitutes in the next room on our way by. We had decided on arrival at the hotel to cut off from the tour group and make our own way to Phnom Penh, yet at 6am we jumped out of bed as someone battered our door telling us to get up. We had no idea what was going on, all we knew was that a group of men were demanding we open up! We soon realised it was our tour guide, who was badgering us into buying tickets for the rest of the journey. When we made it clear we weren't impressed, and that we were fine on our own, he said ''ok, you can sleep more now'', and nearly died laughing whilst waking the next room up. What a w***er!!!! ========================== Phnom Penh is mad crazy. (...Jenny wants me to point out that everyone wears pyjamas here, and therefore it's the perfect place to live. They get so sleepy after 10 or so, even the cheekiest of drug dealers and husslas: 'you! man! you wanna buy **yaaaawn** any grass, skunk **rub of the eyes** opium?..or ovaltine?..where are my slippers?'...) The difference between here and alot of the places we've been, is that the tourist attractions here are genuinely of interest and significance (as opposed to museums full of '...and then our great King grew a set of doves wings and flew over the forest to find a white elephant for his queen, who had been stolen by a troupe of crocodiles on the 3rd of July 2001. He likes to play badminton on Tuesdays, and to your left you can see his personal collection of shuttelcocks!...') We visitied the Toul Seng genocide museum on the first day, and were surprised by just how affecting it was. It was a school until the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and it became a detention, torture and extermination centre. Of the tens of thousands who were brought here, a dozen survived. Each classroom was broken up into cells of around 80cm wide by 2m high, and the tools used for torture make up part of the exhibition. On the top floor are testimonials of victims' families recalling how they had to file through the prison mugshots to work out if, how, and why their family members had died. More chilling are the testimonials of those who carried out the exterminations for the KR as young girls and boys, and now lead lives as everyday Camodian citizens. Soul Teng has been left pretty much as it was found in 1979 when the KR were thrown out, and was a museum as early as 1980 ( that is interesting for so many reasons, but I won't go into it...). We also visited the 'killing fields' just outside Phnom Penh. Clothes of the victims can still be seen under your feet as you walk around, and bones line sections of the tracks between the now exhumed mass graves. Bullets were too expensive and so most executions were carried out with almost anything close to hand- hammers, spades, hoes, plastic bags. Anyone unlucky enough to be thrown in the graves alive was killed off by the chemicals that were poured into the mass graves. Only some of the graves have been uncovered, and so far 9,000 bodies have been found, with many more still lying unearthed. However, nowadays Phnom Penh has a great atmosphere to counter the history. We loved Phnom Penh so much because of how great it was to just wander around. Getting on a motorbike taxi is immense fun, but ever so slightly frightening. Riding into oncoming traffic seems to be acceptable practice here, and the faster the better. So riding down the wrong side of Phnom Penh's roads is kind of like Grand Theft Auto on the ps2 except you're real, you're s***ting yourself, and you're the only one without a gun. Amazing fun, just so long as you don't mind your driver's stunts as he tries to avoid the trucks and broken motorcycle parts lying on the roads. On the riverfront groups of men play football-volleyball with a small plastic ball, and pull off some impressive tricks. They aren't afraid of doing an overhead volley that ends up with them on the ground, face mashed into the tarmac, so long as it looks sufficiently hard to pull off. Jenny decided to buy one of the balls for as a present for Ian, but I wanted a quick shot and within seconds a homeless boy had ran across to get a shot. We played for a while and he showed me how to do keepyups, then I would stumble and bounce the ball off my knee into the middle of the street, and he would run across blindly to retrieve it... After the third time of him just avoiding an oncoming truck we decided to jump over the wall into the town square, but he shouted at me for pointing my muddy shoes at the national musuem (whilst holding his nose and looking absolutely disgusted), and then again for stepping on the grass with my muddy shoes. I felt a little bit silly getting a row from a 9 year old in the middle of the street, but I learned my lesson. A highlight of the trip so far without a doubt, so we let him keep the ball (sorry about that Ian). Phnom Penh gave us another highlight, about 15 minutes later. We were sitting on the banks of the river when a monk came over to talk to us! We've said hello to plenty, but they never stop to talk. We just kind of froze and answered his questions, but soon realised he was being nice, presumably wanting to practice his English. We talked for a good while and we learned lots of amazing stuff from him, for example why some monks have different coloured robes. He, for example, had a lovely deep scarlet coloured robe, as opposed to his friends' orangey-saffron your-man-in-the-street attire, which we thought made him He-man or Captain Planet or something. Apparently it's a matter of preference, and Jenny said that he'd made a good choice as it was such a lovely colour. At the same time she made a slight gesture towards his robe, and his face went grey with terror! He offered us a tour of his school, right next to the University of Buddhism, and we thought 'aww naaaww we're getting scammed by a bloody monk - how the hell do you tell a monk you aint into buying genuine Armani monk robes or amulets or shares in vodaphone???'. However, he just wanted to show us round. He even offered to buy (ie get us a monk-only discount of 100%; they don't got money) us a drink of water or juice because we couldn't find our money! He told us he was 28, wanted to be a lawyer, and was one year away from finishing school and going to university; he studies the full cirriculum for all seniors at (private) highschools during the day; at night he has English classes followed by Thai classes; in his spare time he is a monk! I think his education is mostly funded by foreign sponsors, so is by no means a normal situation for Cambodian monks, but it was amazing to hear about it. Apparently the regime who replaced the Khmer Rouge placed education and Buddhism as extremely high prorities, seeing as both institutions had suffered so much in the 1970s (the Khmers tried to exterminate all teachers and monks, shut down all places of learning, and tried to 're-educate' the population, thus rendering most children of that generation illiterate and impressionable; they wanted to 'end 1,000 years of civilisation' and 'start again from the bottom'). ============================== We stayed in a fantastic guesthouse perched over a small lake, so in the morning you could eat your breakfast whilst sitting out on the water, on stilts. We were so pleased to be here because Laos, especially the south, was difficult for getting on the internet, lacked 24 hr electricity, and gave us no chance to catch up with news, or any music etc. So we were delighted to find a shop called the 'Boom Boom Room' (which we initially thought sounded like one of the classy establishments we'd seen in Bangkok), which downloaded songs on to your iPod! I got some really good stuff: an audio rendition of Hamlet, Roots Manuva, and Hot Chip. I also got some awful stuff, which I will list in alphabetical order: Thom Yorke's new album. Jenny got a Michel Thomas: Learn Spanish kit; no es possible para mi (despite my comfortable A grade at intermediate ONE level in 6th year at school), but Jenny's getting the hang of it. Dead handy out here in Cambodia of course... ============================= And finally, I would like to just say congratulations to big Dave for being a legend on the pipes. Well done. Sounds like you're on course for the 'champions of champions' crown at Cowall, but best of luck anyway. ============================ I'm away to stop typing stuff and get a curry, or maybe some larvae with roasted cricket and peanut sauce, Love Colshy x x x