Thursday 13th; knock knock knock…'hello Sir your driver is waiting'…WTF! No don't worry we were up, ready and all packed up but we got picked up for the next leg of our journey half an hour before we had originally been told! No breakfast for us this morning! Tired and hungry we boarded our transport for the 7 hour 114km trip to Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh. On arrival this was like the most random capital city ever, as hustley and bustley as Bangkok but scruffy, littered and in some parts as shanty like as some of the more rural bits of Siem Reap. We jumped into a tuk tuk driven by an old Cambodian dude who clearly had no clue where he was taking us even though he said he knew where it was and had agreed a price with us before we climbed aboard. Even he tried selling us tours for our time in Phnom Penh, these peeps seriously like to ram stuff down your throat before you've even got used to being in a new place. Eventually we reached our destination, freshened up and headed out for some grub and to explore. We came across a lovely little river front café called Karma that sold some yummy food and sold CIDER much to Lou's delight! A crisp cold Somerset pear cider later and the world was a better place for Lou! We then sorted out some stuff to do the following day and headed back to do some more blog updating (Lou) and degree work (Sam) before bed.

Grouchily Lou awoke on Friday 14th, this was not a good day to be Lou. After a very disturbed nights sleep (spam phone calls, multiple concurrent Whatsapp messages off Sam's pestering boyfriend Ghandi from back home and a 1.45am Cambodia time alarm set for Sam's 7pm GMT 1 hour long online tutorial for his degree) the thought of facing more Cambodian people in her personal space 24/7 trying to sell her stuff was a horrible one. But trusty Sam quickly turned that frown upside down and we headed out to explore Phnom Penh in the daylight this time. The first stop on today's agenda was the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, another stunning sight! We then headed to Choeng Ek more commonly known as the killing fields. This was a very sombre insight into the history, tragedies and survival stories of Pol Pot's and the Khmer Rouge's brutal genocidal acts! Lou took a picture of the memorial Stupa but other than that we refrained from taking photos here out of respect for the thousands of victims, I'm sure all you avid blog followers will understand. From here we got some traditional Khmer lunch locally which was yummy then headed back to the city. Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the Khmer Rouge's converted jail for the imprisonment and torture of thousands of high ranking officials and intellectuals (teacher's, doctor's and even people who wore glasses) before their transportation to the killing fields. This was just as horrific but interesting a look into recent Cambodian history as Choeng Ek, but again only one photo taken here too for the same reason. Blood still splattered on the floors and photos of how the last few victims were found was a real eye opener. From here we were going to visit the National Museum in the hope of lifting the mood of the day but closing time was only twenty minutes away and with a $10 charge to get in we decided to save our $$$'s! We finished the day with a quick stop at Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple on a hill. By this time we'd worked up quite a thirst so headed to a bar for a quick alcoholic beverage to reflect on the hectic few days in Cambodia. All in all a fascinating yet solemn trip…our only regrets…that there wasn't time for a ride on an elepant for Lou (but Sam has pinky promised that on our next trips where there are elepants it's a yes) and if we had an extra day we both agreed that we would have loved to have spent a day volunteering with the local Cambodian children in an orphanage or school or the like. After dinner at a local café on the river front we headed back to get packed up for yet another early start…our journey across the border into Vietnam! Goodnight all!