We arrived in Phnom Penh and set off on what was to become a standard means of exploring every city from now on... the cyclo tour! It was basically like being in a pram in the middle of a motorway - pretty cool! They're operated by a guy on a bike behind the chair you're sitting on, so it's pretty slow going, but you're surrounded by all the people zooming around on motorbikes so it's pretty exciting, at least for the first time! We didn't really get to stop anywhere properly to take photos though which was annoying, but Tim gave us a pretty good history lesson on the city anyway. Before the Khmer rouge took power is was one of the most beautiful cities in Asia apparently but the regime forced everyone to evacuate it and work on farms so it became a ghost city for the 4 years they were in charge and it never recovered. You can't tell though, it's a pretty swanky city, lots of monuments and parks and decorations everywhere. Most the cities I've been to so far (Luang Prabang, Vietienne, Siem Reap etc.) have been pretty posh, you can only really see the poverty in the countryside with the stick houses...

So the next day just so happened to be me and Di's birthdays! And what better way to spend it than visiting a torture prison and a field where thousands of Cambodians died and were buried? It wasn't the cheeriest starts to the day but obviously it needed to be done. And yeah, it was horrible. The museum in the prison has all the photos that were taken of political prisoners and child soldiers and everyone who was executed... walls and walls full of them staring ahead, some women with babies in their arms, and really explicit photos of what happened to them afterwards. And as if that wasn't enough then we visited the killing fields where people were sent to be executed and buried in mass graves, where their bones keep coming to the surface cos of the rain and they have all the skulls in a big display case. And it all happened just 40 years ago. The worst was the killing tree which they used to kill the babies. Just... ugh. Upsetting morning. But everyone keeps emphasising how hopeful all the Cambodians are for the future, and considering all educated people were killed by the regime they had a lot to rebuild... but you can tell they've come a long way since then so there's an uplifting side to it in there somewhere.

After a few hours to recover we went to dinner where Tim our tour guide had organised for the live singers at the restaurant to sing us happy birthday and bring out cake and sparklers... so happy I got a cake, that was really nice of him! He gave us a choice of the heart of darkness bar or a cambodian bar with a band for our night out, then ignored our choice and took us to the cambodian one anyway, oh well I suppose when in Rome! The bar was ridiculously posh with waitresses in ball gowns and torches to read the menu. And the band only sang really slow songs... we had a good ol' rave when the DJ came on though so that was ok. Then we popped over to the casino next door. I've never been to a casino before so I just copied everyone else and did ok on the roulette but then we tried blackjack and lost everything... how is it possible for the dealer to draw either a 20 or a 21 about 8 times in a row??! Stupid corrupt Cambodia! Had a pretty good birthday all round though :)

Next day we took a speedboat down the Mekong to Chau Doc in Vietnam, which took 5 hours including the border crossing which was the most unofficial looking border yet - just a plank leading ashore to a tiny building! The boat was nice, much less bumpy than the bus, with lots of little fishing boats everywhere, nice and chillaxing as Tim would say! Aaand Vietnam can wait for another day!