We woke up at 6am this morning to meet our Tuk Tuk driver, Mr. San at 7am. He drove us the 15km or so to the Killing Fields (stopping to drop off his laundry and to get some petrol on the way). On the way we were gawped at and pointed at like animals in a zoo by the passers by and commuters on their motorbikes because we are Western. I don't mind but it would definitely not be acceptable at home to openly stare and point at anyone who wasn't white!

When we arrived it was still before 8am and we were some of the first people in there. It's hard to explain the whole Khmer Rouge regime on here, but look it up. Basically thousands of people were taken to the Killing Fields by the Khmer Rouge to be executed, including babies and children. All of the skulls were piled up in a temple in the middle, where we lit incense and laid down a flower each. Dotted around were lots of mass graves, and you could see the clothes of the dead people scattered around, as well as some teeth and bones. There was even a big tree which they used to smash children against whilst holding them by the ankles to kill them. It was really hard to take in that something so wrong and barbaric had taken place as recently as 1979!

After the Killing Fields Mr. San took us to the Tuol Sleng museum. It was originally a school, but was then taken over by the Khmer Rouge to become a prison where they tortured and killed, or just tortured them and took them to the Killing Fields for execution. They documented all of the people that came
into the prison, so there were loads of mugshots of people who were probably killed not long after the photo was taken. There were also lots of pictures of corpses showing the different ways that they were killed - it was really harrowing.

Afterwards Mr. San took us back and we gave him our name because he said he had a Tuk Tuk driver pal in Siem Reap who could pick us up. We walked to the riverfront and had an ice cream, and found an ATM which dispenses US Dollars, before heading back to the guesthouse to get our bus to Siem Reap.

The bus was a bit dirty but better than some we have been on. I was sat next to a camp, overweight American guy. He was perfectly nice but spilled into my space a little bit.

On the journey I saw so many things that 'you wouldn't find at home', like a man getting a haircut on the street, a lady taking a bath in the street, children cycling barefoot home from school, houses with huge piles of hay by the front door, cows roaming the streets etc etc.

We stopped a few times to let locals on and off, they often bring their own stools and sit in the aisles! At one of the service stations they were selling fried unidentified insects and also....fried tarantulas - legs and all! As a severe arachnophobe I was not happy at all to see that my chubby American pal had purchased some! I literally nearly passed out when he bit into it. He offered me a leg which I obviously refused, but Vix and Vicky tried one! If there is one thing I would never put near my mouth, it would be a fried spider. That was a bad five minutes for me.

The journey seemed to go quite slowly after that, although we did stop again and I bought some really tasty banana chips. My coccyx was really hurting so I was relieved when we arrived at around 8pm. Mr. San's friend had printed out 'Victoria S' and was there waiting for us! He was very smiley and quickly apologised for smelling of beer because he'd had a few drinks! I was a bit worried when he was leading us to his Tuk Tuk but luckily he had got his pal to drive and he sat in the back with us. We asked him to drive us to a guesthouse we had seen in Lonely Planet, but these drivers all get commission for getting you to stay at a certain one so we were taken somewhere else. The room is much nicer than the last few and there is free wifi so we decided to stay here anyway. We arranged for our driver to pick us up at 5am tomorrow to take us to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, and then walked into town to get some good. Siem Reap is much nicer and cleaner than Phnom Penh, and much less busy. There were lots of nice looking places to eat, and we chose somewhere on 'pub street' where we a had Amok, the traditional Cambodian dish served in a banana leaf bowl.

We are back at the hotel now, it is nearly half 11 and we need to be up at 4am, so I should get some sleep! Although I'm not sure if that will be possible because we didn't want to pay for air con and the fan is pretty ineffective...we shall see!

xxx