Gemma's sickness was not short-lived and she had to spend the first day in Phnom Penh in the room recovering. This gave Craig some time to explore and try and find a cash point machine. This was a slight task as the Cambodians have virtually done away with their own currency and deal almost exclusively in US$.

For the first time on the trip we hadn't booked our accommodation in advance and were being guided by our trusty "South East Asia on a Budget" guidebook. It suggested a backpacker ghetto near the lake which we soon found and checked out. There were around 4 hostels down a small alley bordering the lake, all of which were pretty grim. We later found out that this area is being reclaimed and will be bulldozed; consequently little effort was made to make them look or feel appealing. Still, we thought, the social area of our hostel looked friendly enough so we took a chance, which we'd come to regret later!

After having recovered from her bought of sickness, Gemma was able to hit the sights of Phnom Penh on the second day. We visited the impressive Royal Palace, which was probably (after the Taj Mahal) the second best historical building we'd visited so far. Within the palace complex lies the stunning Silver Pagoda which not only has a solid silver floor, it houses a 6"tall solid gold Buddha, encrusted with over 2000 diamonds and precious stones. It really was a sight to behold.

The National Museum was a little disappointing, but gave us a taste for some of the statues that we might see in Angkor Wat in a couple of day's time.

Cambodia has some truly shocking modern history revolving around the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. The S21 Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek (better known as the Killing Fields) now form a "must see" part of every traveller's itinerary whilst visiting Cambodia. Of course we had to visit these and we were totally shocked by the brutality and inhumane behavior that occurred. The S21 Genocide Museum is particularly horrific as it has been left as it found by the Vietnam liberation army, save for some exhibits and photographs of the victims. At the moment some of the Khmer Rouge leaders during that time are on trial for their crimes and it will be interesting to see what happens during those trials.

As we've said previously, the hostel we stayed in was quite decrepit, so much so that for the first time on our travels we had to get out and hang up our mosquito nets as our room had windows that could not close properly and looked out onto the lake. Each night we would count scores of mosquitoes in our room and on one evening the b*****s managed to penetrate our nets. When we awoke, we each had a dozen or so itchy mosquito bites over our bodies! The mosquitoes in Phnom Penh have the dubious accolade for being the worst that we'd encountered so far.

It was only during the evenings that we realized why this area of Phnom Penh was so popular with a certain type of backpacker. Each night as we'd pick our way up the dark alley leading to our hostel we'd be asked at least a half dozen times if we'd like drugs (anything you could want!) and then inside our hostel we seemed like the only people who hadn't taken up the offers from the enterprising street vendors. This did make us feel uncomfortable and Phnom Penh certainly does have a certain edginess to it, which we guess was to be expected. Anyway, the real reason we were visiting Cambodia was to see Angkor Wat and that was our next stop! We were both really excited!