So, you'll be pleased (I hope!) to see that I haven't left it another two weeks to blog again, but unfortunately we've had an incredibly action-packed few days since the the last one, so I can't promise I'll be able to keep it short and snappy!!

So, after arriving in Phnom Penh last Wednesday the 7th, finding a hotel in a fairly central area (air-con, very nice) and making up for lost time on our blogs, we went in search of a cheap eaterie for a spot of dinner. Unfortunately the area we were in was full of little alleys and streets that were quite confusing and we could only find nicer, more expensive restaurants (we're talking $4+ for a main, which is pretty expensive when you're on a tight budget!) so we decided to have a treat and went to a gorgeous place decorated with Cambodian art and crafts where we got to sit on the floor on cushions while sampling our first Cambodian culinary experience- I had a delicious chicken khmer curry washed down with a large bottle of water as it had been a real scorcher of a day. On Thursday we made an early-ish start to the day and headed off the the Lao embassy, as after our little debacle with the visa extensions in Vietnam we wanted to make very sure we'd have visas for our next destination!!After paying a good whack of dollar, filling in applications and agreeing with the sleepy guy at the counter that we'd pick them up the next afternoon, we hopped in a tuk tuk (or rather what they call tuk tuks here which are actually motorbikes pulling little trailer-carriage things, very spacious!) and headed to Tuol Sleng Prison Museum.

Tuol Sleng (or S-21 as it was known during the time of the Khmer Rouge regime) was originally a school, but after the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh in 1975 they turned it into a prison, which saw around 20,000 prisoners be brought through its' doors in the 3 and a bit years that they were in power. Today, the prison houses a museum as a memorandum to the victims and terrible events that happened there, and in the Choeng Ek Killing Fields which are about 15km outside of the city centre, where many of the prisoners were bludgeoned to death and buried in mass graves. The atmosphere around the museum was quite sombre, as they ask that visitors are 'physically and spiritually calm' to show respect to what happened there. They've still kept some of cells the way they were in the 70s, with larger cells for prisoners who were Khmer Rouge accused (apparently Pol Pot et al were really paranoid and often put large groups of their own in prison or to death for next to no reason) and on the upper floors of one of the buildings, we saw the tiny cells that the 'ordinary' people were put in, roughly hewn from bare brick and wooden planks with no windows. All of this was really horrendous to see, and very hard hitting as walking in and out of the cells, it wasn't so difficult to imagine that only a few decades ago, they were full of people, a lot of them ill and underweight from lack of adequate food and medical treatment, and many people there for no good reason, at least none that they could ascertain from their capturers and torturers. The most difficult part of the place was the hundreds of black and white photographs of victims displayed in a number of rooms. Apparently the Khmer Rouge were, not unlike the nazis, completely meticulous when it came to keeping records of their prisoners, and so each person had to have a photo taken, including the hundreds of children that were kept there. Often it was obvious that the victims had been badly beaten before the photos were taken, and the looks of sheer terror in many of their eyes was really hard to see, and also thinking about the fact that all of these hundreds of people- tiny children included- were just wiped out with cruel efficiency- there were only 7 survivors found at the prison when the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh. I didn't take any photographs at the museum as although it was allowed, and I think in some ways it's good that people take photos of these atrocities so we can remember and try to make sure things like this never happen again (although I know all over the world there are probably atrocities like this happening daily even at this moment), I personally felt a bit weird about snapping away in the place, and just wanted to take in the surroundings quietly and without distraction. There were a number of different displays about the efforts to bring the surviving higher-ups in the Khmer Rouge to justice for what happened, a process which has only seen movement in the last 5 years or so, and displays where people who had joined the Khmer army and were still alive had given testimonies as to how they felt about the regime at the time, and today. It's so hard to understand how things like this can happen, and impossible to reason it out, as the whole thing was so illogical- it's just tragic that it always seems to be the innocent who suffer, and in this case a whole beautiful country was brought to it's knees, and has been affected by the cruel and (I personally think) insane desire to create this agrarian collectivist society starting from 'year zero'.

I'm glad that we went to the museum, as it did help us both to understand more about what happened, but we decided against going to the Killing Fields in the end as the morning had pretty much drained us emotionally, so we spent the afternoon at the Russian Market (not run by Russian people but apparently called that because in the 80s that's where all the Russians went for hi-tech gadgets and equipment!), a treasure trove of beautiful brightly coloured scarves, souvenirs, clothes, food and more. We also took a walk along the riverfront, and while the river is a bit murky looking, and there was definitely a sewage-y tang in the air, it was pretty nice to feel a bit of a breeze as the city was scorching hot! We got a bit of lunch at a cafe along the river, and ventured a bit further on past some shops and restaurants. We were wandering pretty aimlessly when all of a sudden one of the shop fronts we walked past the woman outside beckoning us in started going on about massaging with fish- inccidentally I'd read a magazine article in HCMC about this type of fish called cleaner fish that eat dead skin, and how you can go to a spa that has special tanks where you can immerse yourself in and the fish will take away all your dead skin, so I figured out pretty quickly what she was talking about, and Jade got pretty excited about it, so we decided to give it a go- it was only $3 and you got a free beer so why not!!It was THE weirdest sensation ever- at first when we dipped our feet in the fish went absolutely crazy, and it was so tickly that I kept having to take my feet out of the tank, but after a while we sort of got used to it, especially if we didn't look down!Definitely the most bizarre thing we've done since we've been away, and if not then ever!After all that excitement, we needed a bit of serenity so we poked our heads in one of the nearby wats (though we didn't venture in as Jade's shoulders weren't covered). We finished off the day by having dinner in the guesthouse across the road, which was delicious, then having an early night of books and tv- we do sometimes joke that we act like a pair of 70 year olds with our early nights, but a comfy air-conditioned bed is so hard to resist after a full day of pounding pavement and sight-seeing!!

Next day we got up bright and early as we'd decided to do the walking tour that was in our guidebook, so after a quick breakfast (pancakes for me, yum!), we got a tuk tuk to the starting point at Wat Phnom, a temple which is situated on the city's only hill, overlooking the very imposing US embassy below. It's a very pretty Wat, and I really like the Cambodian architecture as the glamorous gold leaf and pointy roves are so different from what we've seen before as the Vietnamese temples and traditional buildings are very influenced by the Chinese style, so it's quite cool to see something totally new. After that, we walked the walk past several other buildings of interest, including the train station (passenger trains don't actually ever run in Cambodia!), before we made it to Psar Thmei, which is another big indoor market with everything contained under a huge art deco dome, very cool. We had a bit of a poke about before doing more walking in the heat of the midday sun, until we got to a very cool area in the suburbs with lots of fancy shops (window shopping only : ( ) restaurants and cafes, where we had lunch in a lovely deli-cafe called 'Shop'- I had a delicious asparagus and parmesan quiche and Jade had pate, very refined- and so bizarre as it was the first proper deli we'd been to since we'd left home!We finished off the walking tour by heading to the Palace and Silver Pagoda, which were pretty, especially the Silver Pagoda which has literally thousands of buddhas in it, both big a small, including one life-size standing buddha which has over 9,000 diamonds adorning it!Unfortunately though, the $6.25 entrance price tag was pretty extortionate for something which we ended up walking around in about half an hour, and Jade had to pay $2 as they made her buy a tshirt to cover her shoulders as they didn't allow scarves, what a rip off!! That evening we had a nice little jaunt out to the night market by the riverside, where we chowed down on some yummy street food for dinner, including a chicken foot which Jade tried and failed to eat (I don't blame her!)-apparently it's literally skin and bone, no good meat on it at all!!After cake and watching the locals go by for a bit, we headed back to the hotel for- you guessed it- another early night (but this time we kind of had a good excuse as our bus to Battambang (Ba-dam-bong) was early the next morning!)!

Next morning we were up bright and early, grabbed a quick breakfast then jumped on the bus to Battambang, which was pretty uneventful apart from the a/c which decided to either blast us with cold air so it was too cold, or be so feeble that we were sweating profusely. Nice!!We met two really nice English girls-Jill and Jo- that were on the same bus but sitting further back from us when we were queuing for one of the dodgy roadside toilets that we've become so accustomed to which was quite cool as we shared a tuk tuk to the hotel we'd decided to stay at and we've been hanging out ever since. They're just a couple of years older than us and lots of fun so it's great to be in a little group, not just as it tends to be a bit cheaper when haggling for tuk tuk prices etc, but also cos there's a bit more craic as Jade and I pretty much know each other inside out so it's nice to bring some new stories and perspectives into the mix!!Jo has just qualified as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist also, so it's been really interesting for me to get a bit of career advice from her, and Jill does a great turn in impressions so we've had a good few giggles together too!

Anyway, Battambang is quite a quiet place set on the river, so we just spent the afternoon going for a leisurely walk along the riverbank (the water was a bit muddy so not very picturesque but it's where to locals seem to hang out so quite an interesting area) and watching the many different ladies'aerobics classes being led by various different Cambodian hunks in tight vests and trackie bums!!It reminded me a bit of China where they do the funny keep fit dancing, and one of the instructors we were watching was really lapping up the attention- flexing his muscles our way and doing a cheeky grin as he was doing grape-vines!In the evening, we headed to a nearby restaurant which we'd read had good Khmer food, but when we got there the power was out, so there were about 3 candles to light the place-romantic!As ever in Asia, they didn't let a simple thing like no electricity stop them, and we still had a delicious meal of green curry with chicken, and before long the lights came on so we were able to enjoy some delicious desserts and play a bit of cards before eventually the waiters eventually politely told us they were about to close just after 10!Most places catering to the locals will apparently close at 9pm as Cambodians aren't really into staying out late, but some of the more tourist-y restaurants usually stay open slightly later. It would be very odd if the same rules applied back home!Battambang itself is a bit of a one horse town, but there are some things to do nearby so we decided to hire a tuk tuk for the day after so we could visit two nearby temples, Wat Ek Phnom and Phnom Sampeau, as well as the 'bamboo train' which we'd read about in the book.

In the morning we got a quick breakfast at a great little cafe called Fresh Eats that's run by an NGO to support children whose families have been affected by HIV and AIDs, before our tuk tuk driver Nith whisked us off up the road to the bamboo train. As there are currently no passenger trains at all in Cambodia, this is the closest to one they have- an ingenious little contraption of a bamboo frame attached to an engine which can run on the train tracks for short trips up and down the cargo railway lines- apparently good bamboo train drivers know when real trains are coming, so there's no danger of a collision!In the end though, we didn't take a ride unfortunately as they were trying to charge us the same price as what we were paying Nith for a whole day of touring in the tuk tuk, and wouldn't even think about going lower but we'd heard the price shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive, so we cut our loses and headed to Wat Ek Phnom, a very pretty temple situated at the top of quite a large hill with over 300 lovely near vertical steps to climb to get to the top!!We had a little girl and boy as companions, who kept picking us flowers for our hair and showing us points of interest which was quite sweet, and the temple itself was pretty peaceful and had a bit of a rugged charm to it, so the climb was worth it. Afterwards, we headed over to Wat Sampeau, which is a more modern Wat complete with macaque monkeys, and beautiful views of the countryside. Unfortunately it's also situated on top of quite a large hill which would have taken us over an hour to climb, and we arrived during the heat of the day, so we didn't really have much of a choice but to get a moto up to the top as no tuk tuks will go up because it's too steep. So Jade and I gingerly climbed onto the back of the driver's bike, and we made the short ride up to the top of the hill- though we asked him to take it easy!On the way, we stopped at some caves, where during the Khmer Rouge regime victims' bodies were thrown down there after they'd been bludgeoned. Today the caves house a large gold reclining buddha and a memorial stupa containing some of the victims' bones that have been recovered. It's a very peaceful place but you can imagine how terrifying it must have been as a place where people were left to die. Afterwards we jumped back on the bike for the rest of the ride up to the top, where the Wat is which consists of lots of colourful buildings, and bizarrely enough a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu which was a bit confusing!!The view from the top was stunning though, I didn't expect Cambodia to be such a flat place for some reason, but all you could see from up there was just miles and miles of green plains, with the occasional hill!!It's so sad to think that there are still millions of mines left over from the civil war and unexploded bombs from the US bombing campaign during the Vietnam war lying in wait in such a beautiful country, but more on that later. We made the (slightly more scary) trip back down the hill on the motorbike too, and while it can be exhilarating please don't worry (mum and dad!) as we're not planning on getting any more if we can help it!!!

After that we went back to town and got a quick lunch before Jill and Jo went off to do a cooking course and Jade and I relaxed for a few hours, though neither of us was feeling on particularly good form- in fact my body obviously decided that it didn't like my lunch and so I was sick!!Both of us had tummy cramps too, and a bit of nausea, but after an relaxing for the rest of the evening and an early night we were both much better the next day- I think little twinges like that are usually just our bodies acclimatizing to the new food and bacteria in each place we go to, at least I hope so!! Anyway, on Monday morning the four of us got on our bus to Siem Reap, and after a pretty good journey of just 3 and a half hours we arrived- right on schedule for a change! We checked into a cheapy hotel, the Garden Village, and spent a few hours relaxing and having a little bit of an explore of the nearby old market (Jade and I picked up some pretty bags and I got a brightly coloured krama which is a checked scarf that a lot of the Cambodian people wear) before getting a tuk tuk to what everyone comes to Siem Reap for- Angkor Wat!!After hmm-ing and ha-ing for quite a while about whether to get a one day or a three day ticket (we'd met lots of people who gave us conflicting reports of what the best way to do it was), we decided to go for the one day ticket, as knowing us we'd probably be templed out after a day at it, and the $20 price tag was a little bit more forgiving than $40 for three days!!If you buy your ticket after 5pm you get to us it to watch the sunset, then come back for a full day the day after, so we took advantage of that and headed to apparently one of the best spots at Phnom Bakheng, and on the way we caught our first tantalizing glimpse of Angkor Wat (which unfortunately has scaffolding on part of it at the minute, which takes away from it's magnificence slightly!). When we got there, we had to climb up the narrowest steps I think I've ever seen, and we kept joking that back in the day when the different rulers had built all the temples they must have had normal-ish sized bodies with these tiny baby feet attached!!Once we made it to the top, there were LOADS of people, which was a bit of a shame as I couldn't really get any pictures of the temple itself without any people being in the way- kind of reminiscent of the day Jade and I went to the Forbidden City in China and were totally mobbed by Chinese people everywhere!!The sunset was pretty spectacular though, and it was really lovely just to chill out and relax with the girls, having a laugh and a chat. Afterwards, we headed back for dinner (I had fried rice with pineapple, delicious!) before an early night as to catch the sunrise next morning we were going to have to be up just at 4AM!!!!

Some hours later, our alarms went off and even though it was still pitch dark outside, we wearily washed and dressed. I hadn't had a great night's sleep before as our hotel's rooftop bar is quite noisy as that's where lots of hippies and one guy we've nicknamed 'muscle beach' (because he is one of the disgustingly massive muscly men and likes to do his exercises right outside our rooms) liked to hang out playing loud music til all hours, so I really had to force myself to get up. Jade wasn't much better, commenting groggily that it was 'like the sun didn't exist' haha!!Anyway, the four of us loaded up into the tuk tuk and soon we arrived at the daddy, Angkor Wat!!!We found a pretty good spot to watch the sunrising over the lake in front of the temple, and despite there being quite a few people there, it wasn't so bad as the night before and definitely not as noisy as everyone was half asleep!!The sunrise was just stunning though, beautiful colours and a really amazing setting being able to watch it coming up from behind Angkor Wat- as I said before, the scaffolding was a bit of a pain, but I've still taken a ridiculous amount of pictures, some of them pretty good if I do say so myself so check out my flickr if you want to have a look-see. Once the sun came up fully, we went to explore the rest of the massive structure that is apparently the world's largest religious building (though I'd hedge a bet that the Vatican might be a bit bigger these days!). It's quite a confusing place with lots of winding corridors and courtyards, but the wall carvings are beautiful- from the battle scenes with horses and elephants to the intriguing apsaras (apparently they are nymph like creatures common in buddhist and hindu mythology!). Of course I took plenty more pictures, and after a quick scrambled egg breakfast nearby, we hit the rest of the temples on the 'highlights' trail hard, going first to the 12th Century buddhist monastery of Banteay Kdei and Sra Srang (or the 'Pool of Ablutions') which is a large man-made lake which was reserved for the king. We then headed on to Ta Prohm which is one of the more well known temples as part of Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie was filmed here, and it's one of the most interesting as in parts of it whole trees have grown through the foundations of the temple, creating an eerie feel. Apparently when the temples were first discovered a lot of them were covered in dense jungle, but it seems that Ta Prohm is the one of the few that still has trees in it as I think if they removed them a lot of the temple would probably fall apart!!There was some restoration work going on (apparently they use a technique where they try to use the same materials and techniques that were used originally where possible) at the front of the building when we were there, but it is still very atmospheric, with massive tree roots everywhere and piles of heavy stones just sitting where the awesome trees have left them after collapsing whole walls with their growth. Next we went to twin temples, Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon which were built in the 12th Century as Hindu temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu. Although interesting, and in particular to see how the renovation work that has been undertaken looks, by this stage we were having a little bit of temple fatigue, especially as it was getting into the heat of the day-and we'd already been going for nearly 6 hours!!

Finally, we headed to Angkor Thom (or Great Angkor), which was a fortified city built by Jayarvaman VII, who is the King that you hear most about when talking about Angkor. We went to the southern end of the complex first to see the Bayon, which was probably my favourite temple of the day as it is so weird!!Inside this one, there are 54 towers decorated with a total of 216 faces. Each one of them seems to be slightly different, and they all have a rather magnanimous look on their faces. As you walk around and look at more of the towers, what you thought at first was rocks forms into a face, it's really odd!!Very cool though, and we got some good photos posing in various nooks and crannies!!After that, we had a brief look at Baphuon, which is currently being restored in partnership with France (a lot of countries seem to be involved in restoration of the various temples, including China, Germany and India), and has an unfinished reclining sculpted into its' back wall apparently (though we didn't actually see it), before grabbing a tasty ice cream treat after all our exploring and finally walking along the nearby Terrace of Elephants, which apparently was used as a viewing terrace for public ceremonies and is decorated with hundreds of elephants and lions along its' 350m wall. Finally, at around 1pm, we jumped in our tuk tuk and headed back to the hotel for a well-earned nap and a shower. Angkor Wat- DONE!

That afternoon, we had a delicious set meal at one of the restaurants of fish amok (a coconut-y stew), chicken khmer curry and spring rolls with special peanut sauce, and just chilled out before getting a wonderfully early night. Seriously, I think I'm turning into an OAP!!So, yesterday we had a glorious lie-in before filling up on a yummy breakfast (our budget-ing plan at the minute involves two meals a day so we always make sure we have a good first meal of the day) before we caught a tuk tuk 25km outside Siem Reap to the landmine museum run by former child solider Aki- Ra. He has an amazing life story as he was born just before the Khmer Rouge regime when both his parents died, and became a child soldier for a number of years, until in 1987 he deferred to the Vietnamese, fighting with them against the Khmer Rouge at the end of the civil war. As a soldier, he was adept at setting mines as he'd used them often, but when he left the army he went on a mission to rid the Cambodian countryside of them, working on his own when villagers detected a mine to de-activiate and remove them. Now, he has set up the Landmine Museum which contains thousands of the estimated 50,000 landmines that he has removed since starting his work, and the museum now also has a house and school for poor children and those who have sustained injuries and amputations as a result of landmines who Aki Ra and his wife Hourt have taken in. He has now set up an NGO dedicated to his cause, and works with a specially trained team to remove the mines, while his wife runs the museum and children's centre. What an inspirational man!! The museum was really interesting, as it had lots about how landmines are made and planted, the problems associated with them, the Ottawa Convention on banning the use,creation and distribution of them and which countries have signed up and the children that are living at the centre. I think the best thing about it was it had the personal touch, and the man has made such a difference to so many lives with his work. Apparently there are an estimated 6-7million mines (both deactivated and active) still in Cambodia as it is one of the most mined countries in the world, but Aki Ra's mission is to one day see a mine-free Cambodia. If there are more people here like him dedicated to the cause then who knows, maybe it could happen one of these days!

We spent the afternoon playing card games at the hotel bar, then headed out to meet Alena, a girl from the Czech Republic that we'd met on the boat in Halong Bay who happened to be in Siem Reap too. We went to the Night Market and had great bbq-ed kebabs and corn for dinner, then had a poke about at the souvenir and clothes stalls. It was great to catch up with Alena, and hear all about what she'd been up to since we'd last seen her, though she did tell us a story about how some woman threw stones at her for taking a photograph in Nin Binh in Vietnam which doesn't sound so great!!After we said goodnight to her as she had to head back and pack before catching flights home today, the four of us headed to so called 'bar street' which is, as the name suggests, where most of the bars are situated in Siem Reap, for a happy hour pint and a chat, before a not so early bedtime for a change!And so that brings us to today which is our last day in Siem Reap before Jade and I had to Kratie (which is on the Mekong River, and a bit further South) and Jill and Jo go up to Laos, though we're hopefully planning to meet them up in Laos at some point next week for more fun and frolicks!We haven't done too much, except another trip to the market and a gorgeous breakfast at a place called the Butterfly Garden Restaurant which is, as it sounds, set in a butterfly garden!!We had planned to go to a silk farm this afternoon run by one of the arts schools here in Siem Reap which is dedicated to training disadvantaged teens and young adults in traditional Cambodian wood and stone craft skills, a lot of which were rejected during the Khmer Rouge years, however a sudden burst of rain meant we had to abandon ship unfortunately!!Our plan for this evening is to go for dinner and drinks at one of the places along bar street that does traditional dance performances, so that should be quite cool.

So far I'm absolutely loving Cambodia- the people are so warm and friendly, we've seen some amazing sights and the food is just to die for!!It is going to be a bit of a whistle-stop tour as we plan to be in Laos by Monday, but seeing as there is just under 4 weeks left in our trip and we've got two more countries to see time is of the essence!I'd definitely recommend Siem Reap to anybody coming to Cambodia too, obviously because Angkor Wat is such a strong tourist draw, but also the laid back atmosphere of the place is really lovely, and the food and drink opportunities are A++!!

Anyway, better go as as usual it's been another long one, and I'm in the middle of trying to upload basically all of my photos since Vietnam so it could take a while!

Lots of love from Siem Reap xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx