so tim left me with nothing to do for 18hours at bangkok airport while he flew off to HK, separating a glorious partnership that has been going since april. so i arrived in phnom penh in cambodia yesterday morning and was promptly thrown into a very bizarre visa application system then a bombardment of people offering taxis into the city centre. after opting for a decent looking one we drove off towards darkest phnom penh, the capital of cambodia. after finding my way to capitol guesthouse then round the corner to capitol 3 i staggered up a phnomenal amount of stairs to meet up with the legend that is mr c bennitt! we ambled around the city for the day, taking in many sights including a very confusing trip to the main post office! settling down for a few beers we discussed the last few months before heading off to the local food market for supper. then, in the morning i was yet again left alone with the departure of chris as he made his way to vietnam. this left me with a day to myself. so this leads me onto to my visits to two of the most depressing places i have ever been to. the first was the s21 prison in phnom penh, a former primary school turned torture prison building that was used only 30 years ago during the khmer rouge empire in cambodia. of the 14000 prisoners who went there over a decade or so only some 12 people survived. for those of you lucky enough to have seen the film 'hostel' (tim) this place reminded me of the 'exhibition' in that movie, not a nice place. feeling suitably depressed a wandered back to my hostel through swams of amputees and beggars to watch a film, about the end of the world. really cheered me up! so the afternoon i headed off on a moto to the killing fields, just to liven up the day a bit. during the same time and the atrocities in S21 were going on (only about 25-30 years ago!) almost 9000 people were executed into mass graves, possibly being beheaded aswell, in a surprisingly disturbingly small area. after paying my respects to the thousands of dead and wandering around the killing fields, human bones and clothes remain littered on the paths that you walk over, i was duly offered the chance to go to the shooting range and shoot practically any gun ever made. i respectfully declined this offer and headed back with my new friend the moto driver to the city where i currently find myself. tomorrow i am off to siem reap and the temples of angkor wat before returning to bangkok. james