Sua S'dei (Hello) from Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh. We arrived here at around 12 midday from an early bus from Sihnoukville. First impression's were good, Smiley tuk-tuk driver took us from the bus station to the hostel we chose, which we checked into and then headed out to explore the city.

The city we found to be really quite nice, had the same busy vibe as Ho Chi Minh with mopeds everywhere. Our first afternoon we headed out to see The Royal Palace grounds where the famous Throne Hall and Silver Pagodas are situated. The entry fee was $6each which is quite extorianate for Cambodia but maybe we have just turned into tight skrimmpy travellers lol. The Palace grounds were huge and very well kept, both The Throne Hall and Pagoda were very impressive and reminded us of the The Grand Palace in Bangkok. We were both a little tired from walking around the city and palace that we decided to head back to our room to chill out and watch a film before heading out at night. We went to eat at 'Friends' restaurant that night which is a non-profit Charity based restaurant that employ's/trains street children giving them the chance to learn all the trades associated with hospitality. We both thouroughly enjoyed are evening there with food, service and whole vibe of the restaurant being really good. 75% of the profits the restaurant makes goes straight to the workers and thier familys and the other 25% to promopt the Chairty and its other ventures - charity shops, orphanages etc... We were both very moved by the whole place and what they are trying to achieve so we tipped the staff and donated a small sum. After the experience we are both now really looking forward to working with the orphanage here in Phnom Penh when we return from travelling Cambodia's North West.

The following morning we hired a tuk-tuk to take us to the Choeung Ek Killing fields on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. 3million people were killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge just under 3decades ago in Cambodia. Choeung Ek being the closet and largest to the capital with over 17000 men, women and children being brutally slaughtered here between the years of 1975 and 1978. The Khmer Rouge which you could basically relate to The Nazi's ruled the country and wanted to cleanse Cambodia and make it a 'true' country, meaning anyone who was a so called enemy to the regime was put in prison, along with their whole family, brutally tortured until a confession was given then taken to the killing fields to be slaughtered.

The fields themselves had a very eary feel to them. There is a huge Stupa built here that houses over 8000 skulls and bones excavated from the mass graves surrounding it. The doors of the glass columns housing the bones are open for you to walk around and see which again adds to the eary feel. Surrounding the stupa are the 129 mass graves with 43 being left un-touched. The largest grave to be excavated was of 166 (mostly naked women and children) all that were decapitated and buried without their skulls. Their is a museum in the far corner of the grounds which was very interesting and had many displays explaining the full situation/happennings. The display we both found quite disturbing was about how the Trials of the Khmer Rouge leadership are still on-going to this day. We both left again having learnt a great deal about the atrosities that hapenned here merely 30years ago and made us think just how lucky we really are. We left the Killing Fields gate to be greeted by our Tuk-Tuk driver ready to drive us back to our hotel but first he asked if we would like to go shoot a Machine Gun? We both looked at each other and just thought about what we saw/read and politely said "Maybe tomorrow" lol.

We were dropped off back at our hostel where we booked are bus ticket to Kampong Cham for the follwoing morining. Went out that night to the waterfront and ate some traditional Khmer food which was not that good to be honest. Had a drink and few games of pool at a nearby bar then headed back to get some rest for our bus the following morning.
We will be returning to Phnom Penh in maybe 10 - 14 days time for our stay at the childrens orphanage which we both cant wait to do. As i said tomorrow we head for Kompong Cham, a small city on the Mekong River that is meant to be perfect to see the Rural Cambodian way of life.

So until then...
J + B