**Quick note, not that many pics uploaded this time as Olly has a lot of them on his camera!**

All of Cambodia, so far!

Tuesday 31st March

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of Olly, we got settled into a guesthouse and booked up with our super friendly Tuk Tuk driver Mon to take us to the airposrt bright and early the following day to welcome Olly to Cambodia! Had the mundane task of sorting out our Vietnamese visa's, very pleased this is the last time we have to do it! Mon drove us through the insanly busy and heavily poluted streets of Phnom Pehn, quite an experience traveling around here!! Spent most of the afternoon finally catching up on this very blog by writing the Laos installment! Earyly night in prep for the early trip to the airport to meet my brother!

Wednesday 1st April

Welcomed a very tired looking olly at Phnom Pehn international airport, was fantastic to see him!! Had to detour back to the vietnamese embassy to collect our passports before heading back to the hotel. Had a ctahc up and lunch with olly on the roof top restaurant, Olly was delighted to spot some monkets after only being here for 10 minutes! Olly grabed a couple of hours sleep and we headed to the shooting range with trusty tuk tuk driver Mon, who is now getting rather attachched to us, i must the feeling is mutual!!! It was a moment olly had been really looking forward to and it did not dissapoint! Olly went firt a fired a full clip from an AK-47, first couple of shots on semi automatic before moving to the wholy enjoyable full auto mode! Next up it was me, i decided to shoot the faster firing M-16! This was a rediculas gun, it weighed next to nothing but the kick it propduced on full auto mode was crazy! We were highly amused by the gentleman at the range who offered us a live chicken as a target with the biggest grin on his face, naturally we declined! Olly decided his shooting afternoon was not over and had a go with the M-16 also! We were both like kids in a candy store, huge grins and lots of laughter as ohnly boys would! We posed for some great photos with the guns after the experience!! We got back and chilled at a restaurant right on the lake.

Thursday 2nd April

Up bright and early once more to meet Mon outside for our days excursion around the sights on Phnom Pehn. We all knew this would be a bleak day as most of the surrounding sights reveal a distinct picture of Cambodias recent, incredibly bleek past. I wont go into details about the history but between 1976 - 1979 over 2 million cambodians were imprisoned, toutured and killed by a communist reguime named the Khmer Rouge. Our first stop was the killing fields, an area of mass graves were many Cambodians met their un-warrented demise. The area was excavated in the mid 80's and over 20,000 sets of human remains were discovered. This was a humbling and very upsetting place, a central shrine contains the skulls of many of the victims you can see victims were blugened to death rather than shot to save ammunition. As you walk around the killing fields you can still see bones and old clothes pertruding from the ground. From a near by school you can hear children playing and laughing, it seemed almost impossible that this dark, bleek history is only just 30 years old. The next stop was the equally humbling and disturbing S-21 prison, a once school converted into cells and torture rooms which held Cambodians before they were taken to the killing fields. The rooms still contaned the beds and chains that held people, the floors were still blotched with blood stains and a single picture hung in each room showing a dead or near dead victim on the very bed. We did not take many pictures of this place, it just didnt feel right. Other buildings contained pictures of many of the victims who once recided in the cells of S-21, many faces showed signs of severe beatings and torture. We didnt walk around the whole of this complex, it was very difficult to be within the cell areas and just try and imagine what once transpired within these walls. Our next stop was lunch followed by the far, far, far cheerier national museum! The museum was set in lovely grounds and contained many ancient statues from the Ankgorian period temples which are scattered around Cambodia. We finally visited a national monument which was set within a large park which also doubled as a round about! We were thriled with the amount of monkeys in the area but we got a taste for the extremity of begging in this country. We were approached by all sorts, land mine victims, homeless mothers with children and very irritating persistant kids who are out begging for other parties. You feel like you want to give to everyone but it makes it very difficult due to the number involved you couldnt possibly, the kids get rather offensive when you say no too. Headed back to the guesthouse physically and rather emotionally drained, watched an awesome sun set over the lake which was follwed by the biggest rain storm we have seen yet! We battened down the hatches and headed to our rooms and trusty Tv's!

Friday 3rd April

Most of the day was taken up traveling to the far northern city of Siem Reap. Our tuk tuk driver Mon set us up with one of his mates and sure enough he was waiting at the bus station with a sign bearing our names! Checked into a nice guest house which to my excitment served mexican food!! Spent the evening down at the night market which is the best we have been to yet! It had a great variety of stolls and was enchantingly lit, had a great bar at the back where we had cocktails and played card games! Like singapore and malaysia we rediscovered the fish spa! We decided not to have one that evening but were highly ammused when one of the staff held me by the shoulder and ask 'sir, how can i be like you?'' He was refering to my large build, the vast, vast, vast majority of asian men have pretty small and lean builds. Peae, this gentleman was definatly on the small side, by his own suggestion he looked like a lady boy! I gave him a few tips and we headed back to the guesthouse.

Saturday 4th April

Busy day this one, we went first thing in the morning to a floating village out on the lake. It was an amazing sight to see what a basic live these villagers led and they actually had quite a few facilities out there. We were however dissapointed at the amount of extra money our guide was trying to get us to spend. He asked if we would like to visit a floating school which we all did. He then went on to say how we should take the kids books and pencils which we agreed would be a nice idea. We were charged the rediculas fee of $20 for said books and pens, was a complete scam!!! We were then taken to a fish/crocodile farm and told to buy drinks which cost almost 10 times the normal amount, this we declined and at this point our tour guide gave up and just at the front of the boat ingnoring us. He went froma super friendly chatty guy who let us drive the boat to being just plain rude! Was a shame but it didnt take anything away from the sights of the floating village. Now, for the real reason anyone comes to siam reap, to visit the ancient temples of Angkor. We went up at 5 to catch the sunset, we briefly saw the incredible Angkor Wat before being taken to the base of a huge hill to clime to get a panaramic sun set view. Unfortunatly it was a cloudy evening so a sun set didnt materialise, we however got a scope of the size of the Angkor area and the treat we were in for the following day when we were to explore the temples them selves. Spent the evening again at the night market, olly and i decided we would invite the cambodian peae to the gym with us to give him some pointers, he agreed and we were to go the following day! We all had a fish spa which new friend Peae gave us a good discount, it was funny as pretty much the fish in the tank headed to Olly's feet, i was pleased it didnt happen to me again!

Sunday 5th April

Alarms sounded at 4.30 am, we were to set off to Angkor at 5am to catch the sun rise. Disappointment set in when we headed offand saw the amount of lightning flashing around, and then the heavens openened! Poor olly got soaked on the journey but purchased a rain coat on arrival, a little bit of a waste as the rain only lasted another 10 minutes! We rocked up to Angkor wat and watched its dark silouette materialise as the sun came up, it really was an awesome sight! We got the slightest of pink skys in the background but no ones camera was good enough to pick it up! As the day broke we started out mini tour of Angkor and headed to the Bayon temples, in this place the gods live on earth with their faces carved in huge stones. The temples really are a breath taking sight, set within the Cambobian jungle it must have been incredible for the first person who came across them. Stopped for breakfast and were surrounded by the usual sights, kids trying to sell us things! For the first time though they had items we actually wanted and once we bought from them they sat down and talked with us. They were amazingly clever, they pretty much knew every capital city in the world, countries prime ministers and populations! They sat with us over breakfast and drew us pictures and baffled us with their knowledge. This was a lovely experince, it was so nice to see the kids put down what they were selling and just had fun being kids for awhile. We saw many temples today but the highlights were Bayon just mentioned and Pra Thom which is set deep in the jungle and has many trees growing through its ruins, the tomb raider movie was set here. The final stop was Angkor wat itself a huge spectacular ancient temple! The cloudy day ended up being a blessing in disguise, was very hard work trekking around even in that heat! We got back to the guesthouse at about 1.30 all pretty exhausted! Wasnt looking forward to Peae arrving for our trip to the gym at 2.30! The gym was an experience, rediculasly hot and hard to train! Peae was constantly moaning how it was too hard and he was so tired which made Olly and i both laugh! He managed to get through our workout, we somewhat doubt if he will step inside a gym again though! Went for a nice dinner down the trendy 'Álly area'' and we once again returned to the delightful night market! Peae stopped us again and told once more how tired he was, this is now a running joke! Trish put in a awesome effort to buy a fake rolex watch for Olly, she surely is the master barterer!!!

Monday 6th April

Traveled about 6 hours to the city of Battambang. Really didnt do much today, were all exhausted from the previous days sun set awakening!

Tuesday 7th April

Had a awesome day today exploring the country side arround battambang. We each went on the back of a motor bike and all had really cool guides, they all spoke great English and had really good senses of humore! They took us to each destination through really remote roads, via rice paddies and small villages. It was great to see what normal cambodian life is like and the people were all so friendly! It was heart warming to hear them shouting hello and waving frantically at us, even got some good drive by high five action! First main stop was a hill top temple, which involved an exhausting climb with the sun beating down on us. This place once again showed the scars of cambodias past, the Khmer Rouge took over this temple and used it as a prison and place of torture. The caves surrounding the temple were dubed the killing caves and many bodies were thrown down to thier death. The temples were being brightly redecorated in preparation for the Khmer New year which starts on the 14th. The temples were all of the more modern veriety found all over Thailand. We took a well earned break and lunch at the base of the hill before heading off to the next set of hills. The next hill involved a massive climb up 357 steep steps in the afternoon sun. We were accompanied by 4 kids all bearing fans who ran up and down these steps with limitless energy, only stopping to fan us as we rested! This temple was far more inpressive and actually older than Angkor wat, we looked around and played games with the kids in the ruins! Drove through more villages to a fruit bat colony, a highly active one at that! Final stop was to see the bamboo railway, with was literally a load of bamboo strapped together with a petrol engine at the back with ran along the same train line as the main trains. What do they do if they encouter a train? Simple! Take their bamboo train apart and life it from the tracks untill the train obstical passes, genius! Headed back to battambang and invited out guides out for a cake break with us, they were great fun and really appreciated the gesture!

Wednesday 8th April

Lame, lame, lame 12 hour bus journey to Cambodia's southern beach resort Sihanoukville, as you may of guessed, this was one lame day! The first leg of the journey was ammusing as Olly was sat next to a Buddist Monk who once had seen all of Ollys pics with him took one of his head phones and listened to his Ipod! This was quite a sereal sight from the seats behind!

Thursday 9th April

The sun was shining, it was beach time!! Spent the day split between relaxing on a sun lounger and swimming in the crazy hot sea! The sea which was infested with tiny jely fish which gave us all pin p****stings all over, really wasnt too painful though! Again got the barrage of kids selling all kinds of useless items, this was the downside as their constant persistant made it difficult to relax. Women came along offering huge languistines which was amazing! Spent all day at the beach and had dinner and cocktails about 10 meters from the water, bliss!

Friday 10th April

Took a boat trip to the islands off the sihoukville shoreline. Did some snorkling, which wasnt that impressive before heading to the beautiful Bamboo island. We spent about 4 hours relaxing on this hassel free beautiful island! In hindsight it would of been nice to stay the night in one of the bungalows here. Had a delicious fresh bbq fish lunch relaxed somemore before heading off to another island for more snorkling! Met a nice girl called Eleanor on the boat and we spent the evening togther eating dinner and playing cards!

Saturday 11th April

Had a carbon copy day to thursday but with a whole lot more beach pampouring! We had massages and trish had a manicure and pedicure! Was a lovely hot day, a perfect day to say goodbye to the beaches!

Sunday 12th April

Ollys final day in Cambodia :( Trish and i were throughly spoiled as with some money my mum sent out for easter and olly kindly topping it up we stayed in a really nice hotel in Phnom Pehn, it had a swimming pool!! We had a lovely relaxed time chilling by the pool and had lots of swimming time! Came over to Lakeside in the evening to meet up with our Kiwi friends, Amanda and Vejeata! Had some dinner and a few drinks but headed back to our nice hotel early to really make the most of it!

Tuesday 14th March
Today was Khmer new year which we spent with our Tuk Tuk driver, and by know friend, Mon. We weren't really sure what to expect but knew it was a time of great celebrations to welcome the new Buddha with food and party games and free for all water fights, even in the streets.........However that wasn't how things were celebrated at Mons house. Mon is very poor and his house is a small shanty style hut in the back streets of the outskirts if Phnom Phen, we are not sure quite how many people actually lived there but it was crowded when we got there. Adam and I had mixed emotions and opinions about the day as Mon was constantly talking about money, how poor he was and how expensive everything is for Cambodian people and how a wonderful Australian whom he now refers to as brother gave him $1000 to buy his tuk tuk. We arrived bearing a traditional gift of a food basket which we had gone to great lengths and research to get but still felt pressured to hand over cash. However, bearing in mind their poverty they were very generous with drink and hospitality and after an unsuccessful hunt for a chicken we feasted on a lunch of clams with a delicious lemon pepper dipping sauce. There were no games or water fights but it was certainly an experience to remember. Needless to say we did hand over as much cash as we could afford to part with at the end of the day but Mon and his son need at much more than we do and probably appreciate it more too (well we hope so anyway).
The evening was spent in a bit of a haze from the beer consumed throughout the day and the mixture of emotions which we spent all evening discussing over a leisurely dinner.