So not wanting to risk being sea sick (as our journey to the island was very rocky) we took some travel sickness tablets to be on the safe side. The weather was pretty grey and the sea looked choppy. We were one of the first ones on the boat so we sat up stairs on some satellite style wicker chairs. They didn't have covers on so they were a little uncomfortable, Pete decided to take the life jackets from the side of the boat and use these as cushions, worked a treat. The boat left the dock heading back to the mainland. It was pretty choppy to say the least! Waves were splashing us even though we were on the top deck! Down stairs was drenched, we felt sorry for the people down there and a bit worried about how wet our bags would be. Luckily they weren't too bad. We keep telling ourselves to put our waterproof covers on our bags as this is the second time it's happened, first on the coach to Mysore in India, and now on a boat....we'll never learn!

So from the ferry port we got a lift back to town, our next destination was Phnom Penh, we were hoping to be able to get an afternoon bus, so that we arrived at a normal hour to find somewhere to stay. Luckily we managed it and luckily it was a proper bus and not a minibus. Although the front of the bus said VIP Luxurious....it was far from it, but we were glad not to be squished into a minibus. Our seats were the ones in front of the back seat of the bus. This was fine until the man sitting in the middle seat on the back row decided to rest his stinky rotten feet on Pete's arm rest. In the end Pete decided to just put his arm rest up to the mans annoyance.

6 hours later and we arrived at our destination where a hoard of tuk tuk drivers pounced on us the moment we stepped of the bus (it's like being back in India). We weren't sure where we were as unlike other places we have been there is no central bus station here. As they are all private companies you get dropped off at their office, so we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed to a hotel we had in mind. The hotel was ok, the room was a bit weird as all the walls were tiled like a bathroom but it was clean and had hot water so we were happy. By this time it was about 7pm, feeling hungry we headed out to get some food. We decided to just get some street food as its quick and very cheap. Kate ordered chicken curry, we didn't realise the traditional Khmer food is served a bit differently. Khmer is the traditional name for Cambodian people. So when you order chicken it's basically a whole gutted chicken cooked then cut up with a meat cleaver, so you get bones and all. Kate picked at it a bit but failed to find anything that wasn't chewy skin or bone, suffice to say not much was eaten. We have eaten Khmer food before in Sihanoukville, Amok and Lok Lak are very tasty dishes, and they serve eggs with the dishes that looked poached then deep fried, there amazing! Anyway we headed back to our hotel with our funny tummys....a lesson learned ay!

The next day we were up and ready to explore the city, it felt nice being back in a city although Phnom Penh has a kind of town feel to it. We had a couple of things to do while we were here, number one was get our visa's for Vietnam. We found out that any travel agency could do these for us. We shopped around a few and couldn't believe how expensive they were. They had just increased the price and it would cost us 58 US dollars! We should probably explain the currency here as its a bit complicated. So, you pay with US dollars and receive your change in Cambodian Reil, while converting back to pounds. However you can buy things using both currencies just to make it a little more complicated. So 4000 reil is one dollar, which is confusing when you receive a 10,000 reil note which is $2.50...complicated but we just about have the hang of it!
Anyway we handed over our passports and we were told to collect them the following evening, there were no forms to fill out and nothing we needed to sign, seems like they use visa's as a way of making money rather than checking who's going into the country and for what reason. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and seeing the sights.

The next morning we were up early to go to Tuol Sleng also known as S-21. This used to be a school, but when the Khmer Rouge came into power and evacuated the city they turned it into a prison. The Khmer Rouge were communist and wanted to make Cambodia self sufficient by making it a peasant country, so everyone was working on the farms. When they came into power they evacuated Phnom Penh, the capital city and sent everyone to the country to work 12-14 hour days in the fields. A lot of people died from starvation due to the tiny rations they received. People were automatically killed if they were thought to be intelligent, for example if they wore glasses or spoke a different language. People were also killed if they were not 100% Khmer people. Hospitals were closed, schools were closed, money stopped and was now of no value.
S21 was a prison where they sent people who had apparently disobeyed the Khmer Rouge. Hundreds of people including people as young as 15 where held in tiny rooms with very little to eat or drink. Many were then taken to the torture rooms and savagely tortured for hours on end being forced to sign confessions to crimes they had not committed and were eventually killed. We paid for a guide to take us round, our guide was a child when the Khmer Rouge took over and was telling us about her family, she lost her father and a brother and sister, she still to this day doesn't know what happened to them and as you can imagine it is still upsetting for her to talk about, the only reason she survived was because she escaped to Vietnam. The prison was made up of three main buildings where they displayed photos of all the people who came through the prison, and some of the rooms also showed some photos of tortured prisoners and the equipment used to torture people. There was also a block where they had made individual cells, some of these still had blood on the floor, however we didn't think this was real. This is because the prison was riddled with disease, the place would have had to have been scrubbed clean to allow people to visit and the blood looked pretty fresh. This was a tough tour and very upsetting. Only 7 people survived from the prison, 2 of whom are still alive and were there when we visited selling books of their experiences.

In the afternoon we headed out on some quad bikes. This was a lot of fun and lightened the mood a little. We drove round some rural villages stopping off for some freshly squeezed sugarcane juice. It was nice and refreshing and wasn't as sweet as we thought it would be. We headed back out on the road. It was so much fun, kids would run out to say hello, high fiving us or giving us flowers, it was so cute to see. After an hour or so on the bikes we headed to Choeung Ek, also know as the killing fields. There are over 300 mass graves in Cambodia but this one is the largest. People would be brought here daily and killed in the most inhumane way. Ammunition was expensive so it was not used, everyone was killed by hand for example by hammer, sugar palm leaves which are razor sharp and used to cut people's throats or maces amongst other things. Women who were to be killed and were pregnant, would have to wait until her baby was born and then watch her baby being killed then be killed herself. They would normally kill the babies by holding them by the legs and swinging them into a tree or throwing them in the air to shoot them. Although the field is peaceful and beautiful now you just can't imagine what went on there only 35 years ago. Over 8,000 people were killed here.

This was a very emotional day, and it's hard to believe that it was not all that long ago. You notice that there is a generation missing from the population, a quarter of the population was wiped out over the 4 years the Khmer Rouge were in power.
And considering that it was 35 years ago, people at the head of the Khmer Rouge have still not been tried and some are still in government today, you just can't understand why, but it gives you an indication into how corrupt the country is.
In the evening we attempted the street food again at the night market, we opted for some vegetable noodles with the poach/deep fried egg again and found a free mat to sit on, this time the food was pretty good.

It is good to see that there are many projects here to help those in need, for example there are music bands for those that have lost limbs due to land mines planted by the Khmer Rouge (there are still many areas riddled with them in Cambodia). There are Seeing Hands massage parlours where you get a massage by a blind person, or restaurants that employ and teach young people who lived on the street. It's amazing to see and we have visited many restaurants like this. Although they can be a little pricy the food is alway amazing and worth it for a good cause.

We are really enjoying Cambodia, the people here are so friendly. However we do find it weird that the women all seem to wear Pyjama's all the time, we wonder if they actually realise this or if it is indeed the Cambodian fashion!

It was hard to write this blog and give it justice given the things we have learnt about Cambodia's history. If you want to find out more like we did Kate had just read a book call First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. It's a woman's account of what happened to her family during the 70's when she was a little girl. It is a tough read and very emotional but gives you a good insight as to what happened to these poor people.