We arrived in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh at about 5.00pm after taking a six hour bus ride from Siem Reap. We were collected by a smiling tuk-tuk driver that was holding a sign saying "Welcome Miss Ashleigh Dobson from Me Mates Place" which is the place that we are staying. After the short trip in the tuk-tuk to our digs, we dropped our bags in and headed straight out to have a walk about the new area. At first we were thinking that it was going to be as crazy as Bangkok but as it goes it's still busy here but you dont feel like you are overcrowded and cramped in.

We went for a spot of dinner at the Mekong River bar and took advantage of the cheap Anchor beer at 60cent a glass. We had been talking to a Belgium couple the night before who had just came from Phnom Penh and recomended that we visit this bar as you can watch a film regarding the history of Cambodia and detailing the genocide of Pol Pot. This was great and very informative as we planned to visit the Killing fields the next day so was good to get some background knowledge about what, where, why and how things unfolded. After the film we finished our beers and walked up back towards the digs. On route there was a Dr Fish. Now this is something I had wanted to do since seeing it in Siem Reap. Basically it is a fish pedicure where you place your feet in a tank and 100's of little fish nibble at them. We paid $3 for twenty minutes. It took Ashleigh five of those to actually put her feet in. We had a great laugh though and an experience we will never forget. I can only describe the feeling as electrical pins and needles and by the time our twenty minutes was up our feet felt brand new!

Today we went to the Killing fields that was about a 45 minute tuk-tuk ride out of Phnom Penh. We had heard a lot about this place and had been informed that it was something that we definatly had to see with our own eyes. Some of the things we seen were gruesome yet morbidly fasinating. As you walk the site the floor is still littered with the teeth of the dead and we even notice the top of a skull sticking out of the ground near one of the mass graves. The memorial tower is something else. You walk into the sight of over five thousand skulls spaning upward for about eight tiers then other bones of the body for the next five tiers or so. All these bones had been excavated from the majority of many of the mass graves. The informastion that effected us the most was how they used to kill the children and the babies. They held them by there legs and swung them so there heads would smash and break off the trees then throw them straight into a pit to be buried. Totally shocking and a thought that is hard to shift especially once you have seen the actual tree that they done this sick and evil act on.

After leaving the Killing fields we visited S-21. This was a prisson set up by the Khmer Rouge regime that Pol Pot was the top ranking officer of. S-21 was originally a school but after the revolution the Khmer rouge used it as a place to torture, imprisson and kill people. Again some of the thing we saw were awfull and it wasnt hard to imagine what went on in those prisson cells as there were pictures of prisoners chained to steel framed beds post torture. In many rooms there were still blood stains on the floor. We walked into the ground floor of another building to find photograph's of some of the many inmates that S-21 detained over the years in some cases people as young as two years old. This was a totally shocking experience to go through today but had to be seen. We have both been very saddened by the history of this great country.

Tonight we are taking things easy as tomorrow we move on to Sihanoukville for some time on the beach. We catch the bus at 9am that should take about four hours so hopefully will be in our trunks and bikini's by 2pm. Take care and will update as soon as we can.

Thanks for all the messages that everyone is leaving us, sorry we dont have time to reply to them all. Its nice to see people are reading our blog and reading the comments makes us smile and not feel so far away so keep them coming.

Love Peter and Ashleigh x