Hi everyone! We've had another great week in Cambodia! Last Tuesday we went to Phnom Penh from Sihanoukville which was only a 4 hour journey. Driving through the countryside is so interesting, there is literally no other towns between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh. The landscape is just really flat and green with palm trees at random places in the fields, and the roads are lined with wooden shacks almost continuously, some selling cold drinks etc , I suppose in hope that the buses will stop and people will buy from them. The shacks are all either built on stilts with hammocks and tables underneath the houses for shade, or single-story shacks built on the ground. There are children running around on the land, they seem really happy living in such a simplistic way.

We got to Phnom Penh, collected our passports and then headed for the riverfront to look for somewhere to stay, with air-con!! It is so unbelievably hot and humid, I don't think I've ever been so hot!! The river front was so nice, there were lots of restaurants and bars where you can sit outside so it felt very continental there. We found an Italian cafe which was really modern and had illy coffee and proper cakes, so I was very happy! It was Khmer new year whilst we were there, which goes on for three days, so there were fireworks by the river and little street parties. We met up with the kiwis, Jen and Andrew and also the boys from Watford, Sam, Jack and Chris so that was fun.

Wednesday was a really sad and contemplative day. We went to the killing fields for a couple of hours and learnt all about the atrocities that went on only 25 years ago! There was a little museum that we went in first to understand how it all came about and why the Khmer Rouge did what they did and then walked around the site that all of the murders took place and where the mass graves are. They basically wanted all Cambodians to be farmers and self-sufficient, and so mas genoside took place and all intellectuals and people living in the towns were taken to the S21 prison which was a school that had been turned in to a jail for tourturing victims to make them confess that they could read etc and then were taken to the killing fields just outside of Phnom Penh to be killed. The way that they killed the 8500 people there was nothing but inhumane brutality. Only a few of the mass graves have been emptied, one being all headless and another being naked women and children. I think the most horrific thing of all there is the tree that they used to kill all of the children by swinging them by their ankles against it and then throwing them in the mass grave right next to it. It was just unimaginable how the Khmer Rouge could do things like that. The paths that you walked along had so many bones sticking out of the ground it was hard to avoid standing on some. At the end there is a room where hundreds of skulls are lined up and then some other bones and clothing. It was good to go and see but just so sad. It really is incredible how much Cambodia has moved on since!

On Thursday, we had the morning to go and visit the S21 jail. The classrooms had been made in to tourture chambers and cells, and there were a few rooms where they showed photos of every single person, children included, who were once there. That was really hard beacause of what we had seen the day before, all of their eyes showed fear and disbelief. We got a bus to Siem Reap at 12.30 that took 6 hours. We got it with Jen and Andrew, and so when we got there we stayed at the same guesthouse right in the main area. We really like Phnom Penh, but after walking around Siem Reap that night we definitely prefered it! There are just a couple of blocks of roads, but all of the buildings are really nice, just 2 or 3 story, the streets are wide and quiet and so you can walk in the road, and it's really clean.

We decided to just do a one day ticket to the Ankor temples, and went with Sam and Jack (Chris had stayed in Phnom Penh and was going to meet Sam and Jack in a couple of weeks). We got up at 4.30am and got a tuk-tuk driver at 5am for the whole day. He took us to Ankor Wat, the most famous temple first to watch sunrise and we explored that after. There isn't any health or safety there at all which is quite funny. So many of the stones look very precarious and everyone is allowed to go in and explore everywhere! We then went to Ankor Thom which is a collection of temples, and then we went to one which is described as 'jungle ravaged' and had tree roots over all of the temples, you'll have to see the photos! By 11.30am we were pretty tired of walking around in the heat so we went back to Siem Reap for a couple of hours and then headed back to the temples mid-afternoon to see a couple more and watch sunset.

We haven't really done much else in Siem Reap! We're going to Bangkok on Thursday morning and so we would have had 7 nights in Siem Reap. We would've only had 5 but we've had to avoid Bangkok because of the protestors there, but it's been a great few days. We've literally spent all of our time with Sam and Jack, which has been awesome, they're just so easy to get along with and we feel like we've known them for years or friends from uni! We had massages on Saturday which was $5 for an hour, and then went out that night along bar street which was really fun. I met this girl, Emily Phillips, who was in the year above me at Tonbridge, so we hung around with her and her friend aswell! We literally did nothing on Sunday apart from watch films and eat ice-cream at the amaaazing place called the Blue Pumpkin that does cakes and french sticks etc too. Yesterday we went a hotel pool for the day. It was a 4 star hotel so we were loving that! It was pretty much just us 4 there and so we just sunbathed and played games in the pool, was really fun! We ate at street kitchens which was so cheap and then went to the night market for a bit and for some drinks.

Today has been a very chilled out day too, we've had more ice-cream, walked around the market some more and read our books. It's our last night that we can go out here tonight so that should be fun, and then we have another day of chilling tomorrow. Our bus is at 6am to Bangkok and we're literally staying right by the airport so that on Friday we can just head there to get our flight to Sydney! It's been great to not be too busy and enjoy Siem Reap, it's by far our favourite town!!! We're definitely looking forward to getting on the move again and going to Australia!!! So excited and it's my birthday there so will hopefully be such a good day!

So I'm still having just an amazing time, will be great to be in a Western country for a change soon!!