The journey here was mostly uneventful apart from the bus station being completely flooded and me and Stephen sampling some local cuisine...crickets offered in 2 different sizes, big and little, so we tried them both! Big, suprisingly were better, once I had got my brain around a big cricket head coming towards my mouth.

On arrival we headed for our pre-booked Sunday Guesthouse, very apt considering it was indeed Sunday and we were glad we did. The lakes is the backpacker area in Phnom Penh, we went to have a look to maybe move for the second night...the rooms were literally floating as would have been all of our stuff and with a little more rain probably our beds. The 1st floor may have been better assuming there was one, but we didn't stick around to find out glad of our dry city pad we headed to the bar to watch the sunset and enjoy some Angkor beer. After many texts Owen (one of Scott's friends who lives and works out here) found us in the bar and took us for a night out to show us some local Kymer places.

So what did we experience??

• Local kymer individual BBQ at your table restaurant, steak, prawns, rice and beer. Very nice and very cheap!
• Our 1st Moto ride, crazy and they take 2 people for $1
• The Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton winning
• Roast dinner shared between 2 (what is was the first one in 6 wks!!!)
• A lady bar....
• Owen passing out in the toilet, well actually on the toilet!

An amusing evening, with some things we wouldn't have seen if we had been on our own, so thanks Owen!

Phnom Penh (not the nightlife!!) , really does prove that Cambodia is a country of 2 halves, one that will leave you amased by it's beauty and the other that will leave you chilled to the bone with it's recent history.

S21 was definately worth a visit, one of Pol Pot's many security prisons. Really quite a horrible experience but for some reason it had to be seen, probably made worse by the fact that it was based in an old school. There were mass and single detention rooms, that still had chains and leg cuffs in. Rooms upon rooms of mugshots of the prisoners on admittance, something the Kymer rouge liked to do! The most horrendous were the torture rooms, that had been found still inhabited by their last victims, the rooms (14) all had black and white pictures of how the rooms were found on the wall and you could actually make out the stains in the tiles on the floor, the original beds and other bits and pieces were still just lying around. The 14 people found have a memorial outside in the grounds of the buildings and have all been properly burried, most were'n't so lucky and would have ended up in the Killing fields of Choeung Ek which is were Dabbers and Shazza went next, I however was not well struggling with a tummy bug so retreated to bed!

Onwards then to Sikanoukville for our first beach and relaxation stop, very exciting after 6 weeks of travelling and not one beach in sight. It looks like we will have to come back via Phnom Penh to get to Vietnam our next country stop so this may well be a blog of 2 halves...

Until next time. Carrie.

xx