So what is Cambodia like? Well Phnom Penh is surprisingly modern, lots of wide streets, more cars than in other countries ( where life is conducted from the back of a Motorbike.) and sparkly new hotels being built and so on. Yet there are also lots of people living on the streets, and lots of landmine victims begging. The ubiquitous kids selling copies of popular books, that we saw in Vietnam, continues. Instead of motorbike rides we're mainly asked if we want tuk tuks. However, the people are very friendly, they have an amazing ear, and will just repeat everything they hear, so their english is very good. I said at one point Right everyone pile in, in my faintly sheffield accent and an 8 year old parroted it right back at me! very strange. And they will also repeat what you say, and then just say very seriously "Yes." Exmples of which will follow no doubt.

So we were staying at the lazy fish which is by the lake ( covered in hycacinth so more of a bog) which is a little backpacker village really. Apparently as with most things in Cambodia the governemtn are selling it off to the Japanese, so shortly it will be no more which is a shame, it will be posh hotels. We had fun ont he first night chatting with all the people from the mini bus, almost made local enemies when there was a misunderstanding about the tuk tuk fare but we'll gloss over that...

The next day we slept in and then went to Tuol Sleng which is an old high school that the Khmer Rouge appropriated as a prison from 75 - 78. It hasn't been changed much and is therefore really chilling. There are classrooms with just a bed and some torture instruments in it, and rows and rows of photos of people who were interned there. Of the thousands of people who stayed there, less than a dozen survived. THe rest were taking to the killing fields. We watched a film at the museum about a lady who had been looking for her daughter who had gone to a labour camp in the country and then to this prison and it was very upsetting. And in one classrrom there was a bloodstain on the floor still.

In the evening we teamed up with Lore and Annika and went to Friends, a really cool charity which is a restaurant. You are served and fed food by former street kids who are being trained so they can go on and get good jobs. There is a blackboard up of which students and teachers are serving you today and the food was amazing... sun dried tomato houmous... sweet potato chips with curry mayo... fish in lemongrass.... oh the list goes on. Really nice tapas, and a very gesellig evening ( that is one of my new dutch words, you can look it up) Afte rthe cosiness of Friends, all brightly coloured like being on childrens' TV we walked some of the way home, stepping over hypodermic needles and avoiding potentially rabid dogs.. till we gave up and hopped in a tuk tuk.

The next day was a marathon, we upped early and teamed up with our driver form yesterday. I made a call to an orphanage I looked up on the internet and asked them if we could come and visit. They look after kids who used to live on the garbage dump litter picking. They said they would love us to come so we went to market to buy shoes, which is what they needed most. 14 dollars bought us 16 pairs of flip flop type shoes, which we stashed in the tuk tuk and travelled along dusty roads to the killing fields. There is not much you can say about this, apart from there are lots of ditches, and a large monument ( stupa) which is a very big glass cabinet basically with row upon row of skulls in it. It's hard to describe really so I may try later but not now.

To cheer ourselves up a bit, we then headed to the orphanage, I got to try out my french asking directionsi ( hooray after feeling a complete dunce all trip as everyone speaks english so i never have to do anything!) We were greeted by a small girl in yellow who proceeded to give me a big hug and introduced herself in perfect english. The Centre for Children's Happiness is a very cheerful place, full of kids who are getting a good education and learning good morals ( as the centre leader described it.) We had a wonderful couple of hours being shown round the centre, giving the kids their new shoes and chatting to them. I will upload some photos, but the walls are covered in english words and pictures and all the kids had really good english. They are teaching them vocational skills such as computing as well, although they don't have many computers so far, and there is a new sewing room donated by the Rotary club of Sweden. We took a ride to see their new building and suddenly about 5 kids came and piled on the tuk tuk with us, excited to sit on our knees and one girl really loved Evan and would not let go of his hand and just lead him everywhere. I also met some lovely teenagers who gave me their email addresses. We left a donation for them for which they were very grateful. It was the best thing we've done so far all trip, so great to see kids that before had nothing, who have no parents, being given a chance to learn stuff in a loving environment so they can go on and support themselves when they are older.

After that day, we were reunited with Rob and Andrea to hit the nightlife of Phnom Penh ( continuing our drinking tour of SE asian captials) but I'll tell you about that next time...