We met Mr Chum May, one of the few survivors of the Toul Sleng torture prison. His wish is that everyone who visits becomes journalists and spreads the story of the Khmer Rouge regime and Cambodian history, so, this is our attempt.

The ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 saw over 1 million people brutally executed and a similar number of people tortured/starved to death. 1979...2 years before Claire's parents got married, the year Margaret Thatcher was elected and when Michael Jackson released 'Off the wall'. The population of Cambodia during this time nearly halved. Why were these people killed? Because they were too educated and may speak out against the communist state.

We visited one of the many killing fields in Cambodia. In this particular killing field, 20,000 people were executed and buried in mass graves. Many have now been excavated, but shockingly there were still pieces of bone in the ground that we had to step over. More gut wrenching was the clothes, still half buried in the ground. There was a grave for women and children, babies.

From there we went to the Toul Sleng prison, previously a large secondary school but during the regime was turned into a torture prison. Photos were on the walls of how people were found when the prison was closed. Blood remained on the ceiling. We heard the story of one of the prisoners, a sewing machine mechanic that was taken there as the government thought he was involved with the CIA, he didn't know what the CIA was. He was tortured for weeks, kept in a cell 1m x 0.5m, unable to see or talk to anyone. He decided he would rather die quickly so after several weeks, and 12 straight days of whipping to his back day and night, he said he was involved in the CIA. He survived execution as the prison typewriter had broken and so he was asked to fix it. During this task, the regime came to an end. This was Mr Toul Sleng, the man who, now in his 80s, goes to the prison daily, to work. Forced to face this place in order to survive. We were too upset to talk to him, but he gave us his business card.

Greg and I didn't speak for the whole morning. We took no photos.