The crossing into Cambodia is worthy of a mention in itself! We left Chau Doc early on a speedboat and headed for the border. On arrival we all got off and headed for the screening area only to find that the x-ray machine wasn't working so we 'pretended' to put our bags down and wandered back to the boat. Already the '1 dollar' kids had appeared from nowhere. Cambodia is full of them. They put on this voice, look up at you with puppy eyes and say 'wunnnn dooooollllaaaaaa' while trying to make you look at postcards, bracelets or books. You can't get off a bus, walk down a street or stand on top of an ancient temple without being swamped. Give them their due, they have to earn money as poverty is such a massive problem here but we were told to take the toiletries from hotels and hand them out instead. It is amazing the effect that a bottle of shampoo, soap or a comb has on them but by far the most desirable thing is a tooth brush and tooth paste. Dental Hygiene is almost non existent. Anyway, back to the crossing. We were all no sooner back on the boat than off it again to stand in line at customs. It was hard to see what was taking so long but when I got to the front of the queue I saw that the scarily official man had to strategically place 6 separate stamps on the passport, carefully lining each one up and signing it off, not actually looking at the details on the passport at all. I thought that such communist countries would be overly meticulous about who was coming and going but nope, the stamping method is way more important. Back on the boat and we headed to Phnom Penh where I spent the day shopping at the Russian and Central market where apparently it is all the rage to eat giant fried spiders, cockroaches, crickets, grubs, frogs and scorpions (which James spent all of Cambodian and Vietnam trying to convince me into eating. I escaped to Oz without doing so) It is also apparently all the rage to drive a vespa here too - a mod's paradise. They're everywhere. In wandering around it is hard to image how dangerous the place really is because the people are so friendly and talkative but the stark reality was that there was a kamher shooting the week before we arrive. PHNOM PENH Although hugely educational and culturally diverse, Cambodia is also emotionally draining. So much of their history revolves around indiscriminate killing and mindless violence that you would have expected in the middle ages. I couldn't begin to imagine living under Pol Pot (Political Potential) who studied in France before going to Vietnam to learn about Communism in the 50's and going on to lead the Kamher Rouge. Unfortunately the government still employs those involved in the killings and corruption thrives as a result. Many of the tuk tuk drivers are ex Kamher soldiers who are now unemployable! The scars are still visible, literally, orphans everywhere, landmine victims begging in the street and no real accessible education, 45% of the youth cannot read or write. Because of the war over 50% of the population are under 17, 54% are women and during the war the population dropped from 7 to 4.5 million before shooting back up to 13 million since the war ended. 1.7 million were killed and the rest died if starvation and disease. This was driven home having visited the prison and the killing fields. Once Pol Pot had 'evacuated' the city, he recruited children as soldiers whose job it was to seek out the educated professionals and bring them to the prison. Things like pale skin, smooth hands and glasses were indicative of intelligence and lack of manual labouring. These people were brought to the prison tortured horrendously until confession of their job and then taken to the killing field to be killed by a blow to the head and often buried alive. Sometimes heads were severed and disposed of else where to prevent the soul from leaving the earth. Mothers were forced into confession by watching their children being beaten against a tree or thrown in the air and speared on a bayonet before being thrown into a mass grave. The mothers were then killed too by having their throat slit with a palm leaf. Ammunition was expensive! The kids doing the torturing were killed at the end of the year for knowing too much and the next batch was brought in. At the prison there are photos of bodies in their cells that are unrecognisable as human and still some blood stains remain on the floor. At the killing fields bone and clothing stick though the paths and the glass 4/5 storey building in filled with the skulls found when exhuming the graves. It was an experience that will always stay with me and really makes you realise just how lucky we are in the west. Other than the awful stuff, there are some amazing buildings in the city, Silver Palace (there the Buddha is encrusted with diamonds, the biggest being 25 carats and the floor is made of solid silver) and the national museum. We also visited an orphanage, taking books and maps with us for the kids. SIEM REAP Fantastic place, Angkor temples galore! I only got around 4 of them but there are masses. My favourite was Angkor Wot where we watched the sunrise but coming a close second was Ta Prohm where tomb raider was filmed. I was rechristened Lara due to my wearing hiking boots, shorts, a black vest and a plat while wandering around but I would like to point out that I am most definitely a couple of assets short of being Lara croft - It is completely illegal to wander around with 2 guns strapped to your leg and I would never want to end up in a Cambodian prison! We also donated blood, visited the Cambodian landmine museum and generally chilled out- It is a very easy town to do that in- but it was required because we had ahead of us an 8 hour drive across the Cambodian border to Bangkok! A point to note is that Cambodia doesn't have a car friendly road system. We drove a red dirt track for 4 hours, it was like one giant pot hole and I am absolutely shocked that we didn't break an axle! Shaken but not stirred we arrived at the Thai border.