So its been a depressing few days, not because i'm not enjoying myself, but just due to the historic sites that we've been to visit. The tunnels that I mentioned in my last blog were bad enough but the war museum that we went to visit the following day was heart breaking. We had taken a quick walking tour of Ho Chi Minh city, saw the post office (which Mr. Eiffel had designed the ceiling of) and also the notre damn cathedral, no your not mistaken, I was still in Vietnam at the time, however this is a replica. Then off to the musuem.

Not sure words describe the horror and repulsion that the photographs portray, nor the sickening feeling deep within that you feel as you walk round, although it was horrible, it is definitely worth the visit to understand the history, even though it is clearly onesided.

We left for Cambodia the next day, taking a bus across the border. This was a bit of a farse, we had to get of the bus, after handing our passports to the bus driver, then go through passport control after our name had been called, get back on the bus, still without our passports then not even 200 yards down the road, get back off the bus, wait once again for our names to be called, recieve our passports and get it stamped, and get back on the bus. This as you can well imagine took a long time. Never mind, we all made it successfully into Cambodia with a lovely full page stamp on my passport.

So Phnom Penh . . . quick look round as we were all pretty tired, saw the French quarter where we saw other post office (don't know what was fancy about this one) then headed out for dinner but not before people got their feet massaged by fish (don't ask).

So the next really depressing part of the last few days. We went to the S-21 musuem, where all the Cambodian people who were taken there were brutally tortured until they admitted they were CIA or Vietnamese, even if it weren't true. We then went to the killing fields were they were hit over the head and thrown in a mass grave, even if they weren't dead yet. There is a glass stupa housing over 9000 skulls as a memorial to all that lost their lives. There are still more graves out there that have not been found, or so it is believed. This brought tears even to the men as we walked round the site.

We left Phnom Penh shortly after, with full intentions to return but we needed a little escape. So of to a home stay, were we stayed in house owned by the locals, with no running water, nor electricity. We got fed at the local community centre and got to watch the kids playing in their gardens, and cows walking along the dirt track road at what ever pace they felt neccessary. One night here was clearly enough, although it was great to see the way of life in the country, in need of a descent shower we headed to Sihanoukville, a beach resort town, but a place to recharge our batteries. Chilled yesterday and planning on doing the same again today, looking at doing a jungle trek tomorrow then heading back to Phnom Penh to see all that we missed the first time round, like the Royal Palace etc.

So until then