Hya everyone again our short stay in Cambodia

So we got to Phnom Penh safely and checked in our hostel mad monkey. We were very anxious about getting to our hostel and to check out what our room was going to be like for the next three nights. The room was actually better than expected and it was very large with 8 bunk beds in! I soon sent Lauren off up to her top bunk because I weren't climbing up and down like a monkey.

Our hostel mad monkey is abit of a party hostel and you receive a beer on your arrival so that kind of tells you the mood of this place. Our friends also travelled to Phnom Penh on the same day and we all went out for afew drinks on our first night. Our first full day in Phnom Penh we decided we would get a tuk tuk and went and visited the Toul Sleng Museum which was really good. It was a former secondary school before the Khmer Rouge took over and turned it into a prison where they murdered and tortured innocent Cambodians, about 16,000 with only 14 survivors. This was a real eye opener to us and we couldn't believe actually what happened here. There were four big building set around the courtyard , we first visited block 'a' which was where they kept the prisoners ready for questioning . They had a steel frame metal bed which they used to tie these innocent civilians down and torture them in all kind of ways (the picture will give you more of a insight). It felt so weird standing in a room of which many people would lay on the floor and be put through so much pain and discomfort. So the other blocks b,c,d represented the same kind of thing but were turned into a museum which had photos of the innocent people that died here and weapons that were used on these people ! There was also these devices which they had made up to use on the people where they would tie them down to and drown them to deaf . We stayed here for a good couple of hours taking it all in and reading through the stories of people that worked and suffered here ! After an interesting morning we decided it was time to reflect and go and get some nice food in the centre . Our hostel has a rooftop bar which plays music well on into the night and also has a beer pong table so we just chilled up there with our friends and had afew beers .

Our last full day in Phnom Penh we went and visited the killing fields. The killing fields is a place where Pol pot of the Khmer rouge took the innocent people of Cambodia and sent them to there death. There was approximately 14,000 people killed on these fields and this was one of the many fields to be discovered. Is was discovered nearly 20 years later when a young lad was farming for potatoes that he come across parts of clothing and bones rising from the earth. On arrival you are given a headset with headphones and a map with various points that leads you around the site ! And when you get to each one a man will talk to you and give you a quick description of what went on in front your feet! Some of things were horrific and many people found this disturbing. It was hard to believe this stuff actually went on for so long without it coming to light for so many years !! For me it was a great thing to learn about and me and Lauren found it very interesting. We feel we learnt a lot about Cambodia as a country and the history it brings with it . Once we were finished at the the killing fields we went back to our tuk-tuk and he took us to the shooting range where we hoped we would be shooting some guns ! Once we got there we checked out the price list . It worked out at about £100 pound for 100 bullets and we thought that was so over the top so instead we opted for a can of coke and a bag of m+ms .

Our last night in Phnom Penh we went and checked out the night market because we both wanted to see what we could buy . I bought another pair of sunglasses after my ones broke and Lauren bought some silly kind of shorts, there like baggy over sized boxers hahahahahahahahaha . I also bought 2 pairs of fake calvin Kliens which when I got home were too small to even fit a monkey . We met our friends again for afew beers it kind of become a tradition we couldn't break before going back to our dorm for the night .

Siem reap

So after three days in Phnom Penh it was time to pack our bags and move onto our next destination of Siem reap . Our friends were also leaving the same day but were off to a different part of Cambodia called silkomville which is where the beach is , we would of loved to have joined them but as were catching a flight on the 6th it would of been a lot of travelling and after travelling so much through Vietnam we decided we would just go to Siem reap and restore our energy for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

We had a 9 hour journey ahead of us and to be fair it wasn't the best it was so so bumpy and the wifi on it weren't working so it was rather a drag to get up to Siem reap and took all day . We didn't arrive till gone 9pm and were starving so we checked in and went straight for some food. The place we were staying was the same place as Phnom Penh it was a chain and they have two of them so as the one was so good we thought we book the same one in Siem reap aswell . This time we got a double room though and not a dorm , we don't want to push ourselves in too much of dorm life ! It also worked out the same price for another night so it was a winner for us . The advantage of this new place was it had a pool for everyone to use so once we got up we spent the day by the pool topping up our tans as Lauren's was fading by the second lol. We handed a load of our washing in when we arrived which Turned out to be a bad idea as the next day we were going to the temples and meant neither of us had trousers . It meant a trip to the market to purchase some Aladdin trousers for our trip . I got a couple of pairs and Lauren bought one . Now these trousers come up all sizes they say one size fits all but they really don't. When we got back I tried on my first pair and they were rather tight i tried to sit down in them and RIP .......... They split completely down the middle I wasn't happy ! Lauren was unable to comment as she was Rolling around the room in laughter. I thought well I'm going to have to try on the other ones before tomorrow so I tried these on and they seemed to be bigger and more flexible so I went with these the following day .

We started our tour of the temples at ten in the morning .....people did advise us to get up at 4.30 am and watch the sunrise over Angkor wat but there was no chance of us doing that we didn't like the temples that much. We only visited the main ones which were Angkor wat, ta prohm , bayon and banteay kdel. We spent over 6 hours at all four and they were all very impressive .when we arrived at Angkor wat the 7th wonder of the world we couldn't believe the sheer size of it we knew it was the biggest temple in the world but it was huge it rises to 700 feet in height and it sits on 500 acres and has a perimeter of 3.4 miles. While we were walking around in the 32 degree we became very hot and sticky and this weren't good for the Aladdin pants I had on , there was minimal room in them as it was and Lauren kept laughing at me every two seconds . We had to go up some very steep steps and this was it I knew it ........RIP !!!!!! They had split straight down the middle again I was so embarrassed to say the least . Luckily I packed my combats in the bag as a Spare. We spent the most of our time here as it took so long to walk around. Ta prohm was really good to see as this was the temple they used for tomb raider (Lara croft) .When we went back to the tuk tuk to carry on to out next temple there was a little girl she could only be about 3-4 and she wouldn't leave us alone trying her hardest to sell these bracelets to us for 1 dollar . She was so so persistent that we felt so so sorry for her. So Instead of buying one we decided we would give her some of our Pringles. She was so so happy with them we didn't think she's ever had a crisp in her life . The smile on her face was priceless it obviously made her day and I think it made Lauren's . But within seconds we were being bombarded with more little children who obviously saw us give the girl some Pringles and ended up giving out the lot . So there was no crisp sandwiches for us just bread haha. banteay kdel was a more smaller sized temple but still has some great features walking through it . But our favourite for the day had to be Bayon . We really liked this one it has faces incrusted into the temples and is very detailed . We took lots of pictures for you all to see so you can get an idea of what I'm telling you . After 6 hours of walking in heat we returned back to our hostel because we were templed out and needed to get into our pool for a cool off !

That night we took another visit to the night market to get some last few things we needed before we move onto Kuala Lumpur and Singapore where the prices there will be so so much more. Bought a coupe of cheap t-shirts and another two pairs of sunglasses as backups. Our track records for breaking glasses isn't the best. Our last full day in Siem reap we decided to go and do a cooking glass . We chose to do the afternoon menu which was , spring rolls for starters then Cambodian curry and some small cakes which were like little cornetto cones for desert. The was only 4 of us on the course with 2 chefs so it was like one chef per couple it was really good ! Before we began our class we were took to a local village to visit a young family with three young children to see how they Iive and produce their food daily. We were greeted by a young little girl she was really happy and full of life . she was so happy to see us and full of smiles and wanted to play with us ! Lauren loved her straight away and the girl wouldn't leave her alone . We looked inside the home which was a bamboo hut held together by wires and strong leaves. The living conditions were unbelievable and to think 5 people lived here didn't make sense. We took the family 2kg of rice and 4 bottles of water they were very grateful and it made us feel good. We wish we had some chocolate or sweets to give the little girl but we were In the middle of nowhere . Once we returned from the village it was time to start cooking . First of all it was the Cambodian curry !! First we started off by cutting up ingredients to make a paste for the curry. Once the paste was made we cut up all our vegetables to put into it . These were cauliflower , sweet potato , onion , coconut milk , eggplant , lemon grass , garlic , shallots , sugar and salt . Then followed my favourite the chicken we diced that up ready to put in our pan with the paste ! Once this was all mixed we got to try our currys out and was given extra pepper ,salt and sugar to make it to exactly how you would want it !

Once we were happy with the currys we turned to make our starter spring rolls . We were given 3 rice paper sheets and a plate of all the ingredients we were going to be putting into the rolls. Going into our rolls were lettuce , grated carrot, basil, chicken , spring onion , mint leaves , cucumber , vermicelli noodles , bean sprouts and coriander leaves . This was the easy bit trying to roll them up with my fat fingers was a task in itself . Lauren had no trouble she was really good at making them .

With two courses down it was our last one to do these were called nong tong noun . In the pictures you be able to see what theses look like , there like little ice cream cones. The ingredients that went into this was flour , duck egg , sugar, coconut cream, black seasame seeds , oil and water ! It was pretty much like making a pancake they were delicious . After all our hard work of making this 3 course meal it was time to try it out and if we didn't like it we only had ourselves to blame. We all loved it and managed to eat all of it so we were all very happy with our cooking skills !

Once we had finished we left the village and returned to our hostel by our lovely tuk tuk driver and chilled by the pool for the rest of the day . We check out early tomorrow morning at about 6am to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur. We've loved Cambodia and done some really cool stuff here and had an amazing time.

We're only in Kuala Lumpur for three nights before we catch a sleeper train down to singapore where we fly to Austrailia ! So an update won't be far away .

Xxxxx