WERE BACK!!!We have decided to swap moderate luxury and clear, warm waters for squat toilets and back packs!Once again we are awoken by the roosters crowing and screaming motorcycles that seem to be doing circles around our bed, climbing out from under our mosquito net (ok so we have air con tonight) heading down to the shared toilet for a cold shower the senses are assaulted with noises and smells from the busy streets below…it's great to be back!Actually that's not too different to life in Bang Niang so no adjustments necessary!We have had a fantastic few months living in Thailand and can hardly believe how quickly 6 months have gone and are astounded that we have now been away a year already!The Surin and Similan Islands have been an amazing place to work (check out some of the pictures eventually when I can upload them back to sloooow internet!) if you can call it that and we are more than likely going to work next season as well…who wouldn't!?!?For the summer we could not decided what to do with ourselves, we toyed with the idea of working somewhere (really we did) but couldn't find anything so we finally decided, the day we finished work and 2 days before our visas ran out, that we would take the opportunity to travel albeit on a very tight budget to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.So that's where the story begins………….Leaving Bang Niang and our little house at 5.30am headed for Phuket Airport in a taxi with leather seats we are full of excitement at heading off again but fully aware of the long hours of planes, trains, automobiles, bartering and eating rice that lay ahead of us!We are easing ourselves slowly back into it and are catching 2 planes to Phnom Penh, Cambodia as apposed to buses and boarder crossings, not just yet!Board the plane to Bangkok with leather seats, flash packers or back packers…you decide, and end up sitting nextto Joe Steak, ok not his real name but he has a great steak restaurant in Bang Niang and his name is Joe.Spend a few hours at Bangkok airport eating Burger King (nearest one before was over 2 hours away!) and catch the plane to Phnom Penh saving about 15 hours in traveling.Incidentally…Emma who has never been afraid of flying (Jason hates it and would rather have walked to Cambodia) completely lost it in light turbulence and had to breath from a paper bag, much to the delight of fellow passengers!Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh is where extremes of wealth and poverty are visible everywhere.The city can charm you and yet also chill you to the core.There are still some amazing French colonial buildings and a baggett can be had almost anywhere!Today we visited the attractive and peaceful National Museum with its beautiful Angkor and Buddhist artifacts. This morning and yesterday were quite different.We visited Tuol Sleng Museum which started life as a secondary school.In 1975 Pol Pot's security forces turned the school into S-21 the largest centre of detention and torture in the country.Almost everyone here (I believe there were 7 survivors) were later killed at the Killing fields of Choeung Ek (where we visited today).This is one museum where silence does not need to be requested.Between 1975 and 1978 around 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khumer Rouge including men, women and children.Farmers, teachers, journalists, academics and their family's were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured and eventually killed.As you walk the halls of Tuol Sleng you are haunted by the faces of the thousands of men women and children that lost their lives detailed by their images shown in their admission photographs on display.Little has changed here since the early eighties, the horror of the atrocities that occurred here in our lifetime left a bad taste in our mouths and a very dark feeling for hours afterwards.This morning we visited Choeung Ek and experienced the same horrors.There is a monument housing over 8000 skulls over 17 levels that were excavated here during 1980.The stupa serves as a monument to the approximately 17,000 that were killed here.Walking around the mass graves human bone and clothing is visible in the earth beneath your feet a striking contrast to the Cambodia of today.Trying to comprehend the mixed history of this country is a humbling experience and yet the people seem amazing. So far we are loving Cambodia and the people are friendly and welcoming.We have to have our wits about us, got used to being a little chilled out over the past few months but it's certainly good to be back on the road again. From here we are going north to Angkor to get a bit spiritual and meditate for a while (can you see Jay doing this?)and then back down to the beach to try a bit of diving…what…we miss it it's been 3 days!Anyway, enough from us…always good to hear from you so keep in touch and we promise to update you on our travels as they happen.Expect something again soon….x x x x