I've been spelling Phnom Phen wrong. It's supposed to be Phnom Penh, but I can't change it now!

Sent a bag of washing to a little place over the road from our hotel this morning. They only charge $1 per KG for laundry. Mine weighed 1.2 kgs - so cheap!! (got it all back in one piece later in the day!).

Our group decided to just organize today's activities by ourselves. We rented a tuk-tuk for the day, rather than having a tour guide - $15 to have one tuk-tuk for 4 people from 8.30am til about 3pm, bargain!
Tuk-tuks have an extra crazy feature in Cambodia. When they want to cross a road, they drive up the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic to reach the turning...It's crazy! You see all these cars and bikes coming towards you, but you drive straight towards them and they all avoid you. They all understand what each other is doing and where they are going to drive. Organized chaos.

Our first stop was about 6km away (in a tuk-tuk!) - Choeung Ek: The Killing Fields ($2 entrance fee). It was the main extermination camp during the time the Khmer Rouge ruled, from 1975 to 1979. During this time, approximately 1.7 million people were killed although it is unknown exactly how many (our tour guide said 3 million which was a quarter of the population). They killed practically anybody, especially intellectuals. And they would kill any offspring of an intellectual just in case when they were older and intelligent, they took revenge. They killed men, women and children including babies. There were very graphic accounts of how they were killed too. Even foreigners were killed including Europeans and an Australian. Unbelievable that the world seemingly sat back and let it happen. It was the Vietnamese who intervened in 1979. Many of the leaders at that time are still alive and a trial has been ongoing for a few years now. The leaders claim they knew nothing about the couple of hundred execution camps...
There was a museum type centre what we walked around and read lots of information and a short film we watched. Also, a Stupa (a large tower as a memorial) which contained thousands of skulls and bones that had been excavated from the fields. Then we walked around the Killing Fields - basically lots and lots of mass graves. There are 129 mass graves, 86 of these have been exhumed. As we walked around, you could actually see clothes that were coming up through the ground - this happens due to the flooding.
It's a very emotional place and a gut-wrenching part of history.

We took our tuk-tuk back to town to the Tuol Sleng Museum: Security Prison 21 or S21 ($2 entrance fee). It was once a school, until in 1975 when it was turned into a detention centre. Over 17,000 people were detained and tortured here, before being taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek: The Killing Fields. Each prisoner was photographed and the rooms are covered with thousands of these pictures. There are short stories from people who survived and from people who had relatives who were taken away. Then there were the stories from the people who were part of the Khmer Rouge. They say they had no choice but to work for the Khmer Rouge or be killed themselves.
Again, another emotional place.

So, this is why the population is so young - 50% under 18. And that's why it will take longer for the country to rebuild itself as a lot of the educated professionals were killed.

It was lunch time so we headed towards The Russian Market to have a look around and get some food. Before shopping we wanted to eat and stumbled across a really nice little place called Cafe Yejj. The food was lovely - there were pastas, salads, paninis and some Cambodian food. I had a club sandwich - was really good! After, we realized it was recommended in the booklet we got from Gap Adventures too.

We went for a browse around the market and to see if there was anything we could get for some kids were visiting later in the evening (more about that later). We got them a football and a shuttle c*** - not the ones used for badminton, but one similar that's used for a popular south-east Asian game. I got myself one too - maybe bring it back and start a new craze in the UK!

We went back to the hotel to rest a bit before meeting at 5 to go to the children's orphanage. They have babies up to late teens there. It's the orphanage that is part funded by the restaurant that we ate at last night.
When we arrived at the children's orphanage, we had to take our footwear off and were immediately greeted by some of the kids. I forgot to mention that everyone greets you with there hands together (like praying) and bows there head slightly - same in Thailand. Lots of the younger ones were away on holiday in Siem Reap. There were still about 10 other kids ranging from 11 to 15. We all did a little introductory - sat in a circle and had to stand up and introduce ourself. We gave them the ball and the shuttle c*** (and some toothbrushes we'd nicked from the hotel). They were so grateful and immediately shot up to start playing. They're so full of life and seem like very happy kids. We played Monkey (piggy in the middle) and I was the monkey first! Was good fun and the kids really enjoyed it. Then we played another game where you tie a balloon around your right ankle with an elastic band and then have to burst everybody else's while protecting your own - another good game! Then we played a game trying to jump the rope.
We had a really good time with them. Something we wouldn't have known about had we not been on this Gap Adventures tour.

We'd worked up a hunger and our tour leader had booked us into another restaurant that helps street children and is run by them. I don't mean 8 year olds running around, probably 14 onwards! They get taught to cook and about hospitality etc so they have a trade for the future. It was a long walk there along the crazy roads, but we stopped be we stopped part way because there were fireworks going off! Really good fireworks - massive, like the ones we saw at Disney World last year. Today is the King of Cambodia's birthday, hence the fireworks. We were a but miffed because it would have been good to be on the riverfront to watch the fireworks, but our tour leader didn't know about it...

Anyway, we made it to the restaurant. They were all so attentive - filling glasses, cleaning around you but still very discreet! Lovely surroundings - felt like we were in an expensive plush restaurant! Really good food as well. They had odd things on the menu like ants and crispy tarantula as well. Two people from our group had ants...few peep tried them but I didn't bother and Therese definitely wasn't going to because she's got a dodgy stomach.

Got back to the hotel a bit earlier than normal, about 8.45pm to do some packing and get a decent nights sleep. Got to be up early in the morning for a coach ride to Sihanoukville!