Howdy family and friends, here we are in Cambodia...can you believe it!!! We arrived 6 days ago in Siem Reap (north Cambodia). After paying double rate for our bus in Bangkok we had hoped to avoid the famous Siem Reap bus scam...we weren't so lucky! We were taken to the border where we had to carry our backpacks for a mile, changed bus about 10 times and were put on a big bus for the final stint of our journey...a big no no as there are no proper roads into Cambodia- needlesss to say, a very bumpy ride.

Siem Reap was totally awesome. we had some delightful accommodation and were in a really good part of town. We bought a 3 day temple pass and explored the ruins of Anor... miles of ancient ruins. There is not much else to do there really and so 3 days was enough.

We then moved on to the capital city Pnom Penh. We arrived at our accommodation.. asencouraged by a trustworthy lonely planet book.. Lakeside No. 9.. AKA hell. We were shown to a room that was $5/night.... We nearly through up... the most pungent smell of damp and i'm not even going to discuss what was left in the bathroom for us.. we asked to get moved to another room.. this one was $4/night... pretty grim, 1 single bed but didnt mell too bad.. and so in a moment of weakness we took it. Next day we went to see the museum and Killing fields... some basic history.. in the late 70s some revolutionists calling themselves the Khmer Rouge tookover Thailand and dissolved the government. They had this idea of a new Cambodia.. they got rid of any currency and stopped imports and exports. They only way people could eat was to carry out there asigned work. They saw academics or people really with any education as a threat and sent them to security prisons.. where they wer torturedfor information. The museum used to be 1 such prison. It was pretty heavy and shocking. The prisoners were then transferred to the killing Fields where there was mass murder and the bodies were thrown into pits. We couldnt believe that this had all happened so recently, and the rest of the world had been oblivious to it all. They cleared whole cities, it was in the same league as Hitler. As u can imagine, that night we were pretty depressed and decided to forget our $2 daily food budget and treat ourselves to a nice meal. Randomly we bumped into yet another Aussie who was travelling alone and ended up going for dinner with him- he promised to teach us to surf when we get to Sydney. After Dinner, we reurned to the shack.. and Laura began to feel pretty queasy.. before we knew it.. projectile vommiting all night.. delightful.. lovely sound effects for Tara. The next day after Laura had finally stopped being sick- we took a 4 hour bus down to the coast.. Sihanoukville.It is a pure delight to be back on thebeach and its bloody hot. At night there are loads of $3 BBQd.. fish and mmeat.. yum yum.

We plan to stay here a couple more days before moving on to Vietnam. Sorry this blog has been a bit dull.. but we are about to go eat andwe are bloody starving.. to hungry for humour.

Anyway love u all lots-- miss u all.. Stay tuned.