At the point you will read this blog we are safely out of Cambodia, the reason we mention this now and the blog is late going on is because Cambodia has an estimated 4-6 million unexploded land mines spread throughout!

De-mining organisations are working hard to clear these arbitrary assassins, but as always in war no records were kept of where the mines were planted. This makes clearing the mines extremely hard and the most common way a mine or area of mines is discovered is when a child playing or adult working in the area loses a limb or life when they set one off!

In the time that we weren't at the killing fields in Phnom Phen if we weren't in the hotel we were under a constant barrage of beggars' and book and post card sellers', which even if you were in a restaurant would go from table to table. Nearly all of which were disabled from a land mine accident. Part of the problem here is that if you buy anything to try and help or give any donation at all the word spreads like lightning and they are all on you, which then means you either end up broke or pick pocketed. A difficult position to be faced with every time you set foot out of the door, combined with the knowledge that you should never step off of the main paths or roads, as any untouched ground you walk on could contain a mine that would put us in the high number discovering an area to be cleared

Emotionally drained between the killing fields and untold number of beggars and land mine victims, it was time for us to move on and re-charge ourselves. The obvious choice was the beach resort in Sihanoukville.

We had planned on a few day stop here, but found a place that had such good food, pool and five minutes from the beach we ended up staying two weeks. Our time was split between eating, sleeping, pool, and beach. That was it, we did noting else other than that, so unless you want a daily break down of pool lengths and food menus there really is nothing to tell other than it was very relaxing and gave us time to reflect on what we had done in the last eight months of travelling! The only down side to this place were the hoards of kids trying to sell sunglasses and wrist bands on the beach, but a word of warning if you go on holiday and think you are helping by buying from them, you're not!!! All you are doing is lining the parents pockets and encouraging them to keep sending the kids out selling instead of to school. You're help would be much better placed by buying them a sandwich or drink or cheap pair of flip flops if they have no shoes.

Having dragged ourselves away from the lovely beach area, we had travelled to Siem Reap. A place world famous for its Wats/Temples, which also happen to have the biggest temple in the world!! Odd that in view of the fact this is possibly the poorest part of Cambodia, but yet the most famous world wide.

You may at this point be thinking these are just some more temples same as the rest, well you'd be very wrong. These are the 'Daddy's'! The Wats are known as the 'Wats of Angkor' with the worlds biggest simply named 'Angkor Wat', there are 79 in total with a road network of 30km to get to the entrance points. The land between and around them is unmeasured a its so vast, they make up an entire city inside of a wall network like the outer of a castle but on a huge scale.

We chose three of the 79 to in visit in one day, along with a few bits and pieces of ruins. You can buy up to a week pass for the temples but that would be way too much of an overload for us. The 'Angkor Wat' was one of our choices and is impressive in its size and is a maze of corridors with some brilliant carvings on the walls resembling battles, but we don't feel this was the best of the Wats we saw even though it's the biggest.

The best by far and most photogenic was the 'Ta Prohm Wat', Ta Prohm looks like it fell straight out of a film set from Indiana Jones; Which would be a close guess but it was actually used for the film 'Tomb Raider'. The Wat has been left untouched and inside is a maze of narrow corridors and crumbling stonework, areas of which are roped off as they stand a serious chance of collapse at any moment.

The real beauty of this Wat though is provided purely by nature as most things are, the mature trees that grow in this part of the jungle are unstoppable. As such they have grown through, around, over the walls, roofs, and any other part of the Wat that they can. Making it impossible to remove them as they from part of the structure, hard to believe we know but you will know which bits they are when you see the pictures. This amazing sight has brought a new name about for the Wat and is now commonly known as the 'Jungle Temple'.

Coming a close second is the 'Bayon Wat', if you've ever had that feeling your been watched its not a patch on how you' feel here. There are 216 gargantuan faces that watch over every inch of this Wat, all are set up high and are several time the size of a human let alone a humans head! To make it even more creepy the faces with an icy smile have a startling resemblance to the king of the time.

If you are wondering what all these great Wats were built for we can tell you, they were not as you would think mainly for religion. They were the work of the 'Khmer Empire', who you will know better as the 'Khmer Rouge' which was their later name who were also responsible for the killing fields of which you have already read about. Their aim was to build an entire city of Wats which could house there entire community and offer them a safe haven behind the outer walls and the religious element of a Wat.

You will see many pictures of elephants carved into walls and elephants heads and trunks made from stone and in sets of three, these make up the 'Elephant Terrace'. This was the place that the king would stand to address his public audience of the city.

The empire only abandoned the Wats when it became too difficult to maintain them as the 'Angkor Wat' itself was taking 80,000 people for its daily up keep. This was the point when they moved in to the other areas of Cambodia and the killing spree began.

All in all the Wats are by far the best we have seen so far and it is unsurprising that they have been used in several films and are so popular with visitors. But after our one day we were exhausted as it involves a massive amount of walking, even after you have hired a Tuk Tuk to take you between the ones you want to see.

Oh almost forgot to say the pictures of the crocodiles were taken from the balcony of our hotel in Siem Reap, it is a croc farm as the Cambodians are big on not only eating crocs but making clothes and things from them too.

Lastly before we left Cambodia we returned to Phnom Penh in transit and got the harsh reminder of the tragedy the land mines cause here, by the once again overwhelming amount of visibly disabled people of all ages.

So next time you think you complain about your job or cant be bothered walking somewhere, just remember that your lucky that you have that choice and that you aren't in risk of losing any part of your body to a land mine just because you walked on a piece of grass in the park!
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