Hi everyone,

Our time in Cambodia began with a tiring (but cheap) 24 hours of travelling from Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand up to Bangkok and then negotiating the land border through to Siem Reap. In total I think it involved 7 or 8 different types of transportation (everything got a litte hazy in the middle!) and was a bit of an adventure. Plus, we are pleased to report that we successfully fobbed off all the money-grabbing touts on the approach to the border and were victorious over the corrupt border police who try to blatantly overcharge you for your visa (standing under a sign saying $20, they tried to charge us $25 but after a stand-off of about 10 minutes they let us through for the correct price, not looking best pleased about it either!).

So we arrived at a great little guesthouse in Siem Reap that was more like a hotel and dirt cheap - a favourite kind of place. After an afternoon of recovering from the journey we launched oursleves headlong ito 2 days of explroing the famous temples of the are; needless to say Alex was not quite as enthusiastic about this as I was. The temples of Angkor are spread out over a huge area and are absolutely stunning especially when you consider they are about 1000 years old. As it was too hot to cycle we opted to be lazy and hire a tuk-tuk driver instead and he was very sweet giving us information about each of the temples as he dropped us off and waited to whisk us off to the next.

We saw a huge number of temples varying in size and style, but our favourite had to be Ta Phrom, famous as a filming location for Raiders of the lost Arc. It was left unattended for many years during which the jungle started to reclaim its land to dramatic effect ; giant trees now grow on its rooves with thick roots snaking their way down its sides. Angkor Wat was also spectacular and inteded to be the centrepiece of this holy city. Unfortunately the weather refused to play ball for either sunset or sunrise with huge stormclouds refusing to appreciate our effort of getting up at 5:30 am but at least it was cooler to walk around at this silly hour of the morning.

One of the temples was located about 25km away and we really enjoyed the ride through the Cambodian countryside with everyday life going on all around us. I don't think either of us could get over the level of poverty in Cambodia nor how hard working they are. Walking out of the temples you are immediately confronted by hordes of sales people selling you everything you could possibly want or as is more often the case, not want. Many of these sellers are very young children perhaps as young as 4 or 5 who can already speak enough English to communicate, count in several languages and tell you an amazing number of facts about your home country as part of their sales technique. Even Alex learnt a few lessons in sales - our favourite being a little girl who gets you to play noughts and crosses in the mud and when you (inevitably) lose insists you now have to buy something! Ingenius!

We also visited a landmines museum run by a guy who was a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge and planted many of the landmines himself. There are still millions of landmines left and he personally has defused hundreds of thousands and runs a centre for children maimed by landmines, helping them get an education and set themselves up to be self-sufficient in future. Reading some of these childrens stories is really moving especially knowing that these are the lucky few, many people, adults and children, can become outcasts in society because of their disabilities. It starts to hammer home the tragic plight Cambodians have faced in the last few decades.

In Phnom Penh we learnt more about the recent history of Cambodia as we visited the Killing fields and the Toung Sleng museum. You may have recently seen pictures on the news of Toung Sleng which was a prison where hundreds of Cambodians were bought to be tortured and interrogated before meeting their final fate in the killing fields. Finally, 30 years later, the man (if he can be called that) who ran the place is finally being facing a trial and apparently has pleaded guilty and begged for forgiveness. It was an interesting but extremely harrowing day to look around these sites. In the prison you are confronted with faces of men, women, children and babies who were all held here and murdered by the Khmer rouge. The cells have been left as they were found in many instances and it turns your stomach to still see the blood stains on the floor and a memorial at the killing fields displays 800 of the skulls dug up in mass graves there. In total over 20 per cent of the population lost their lives in this genocide and the infrastucture still suffers today as anyone educated and therefore a potential threat to the regime were targeted.

After everything we saw and learnt in Cambodia we were both humbled and amazed by the people who live here. In all our travels so far they have to be the friendliest, most good natured and hospitable we have met, suprising considering everything they have endured. The memories of the people are those we will take away with us, from children happily playing in the puddles during a torrential downpour to street sellers giggling at the strange man walking around the streets in a bra! One of our guesthouse staff is already friends with Alex on facebook and eagerly awaits a CD we've promised to send him - he loves Western music and seems to think Alex is famous a DJ-extraordinare once his decks were mentioned! Apparently he is going to burn the CD Alex makes for him and sell it to all his friends!

We definitley hope to go back here someday...so we'll add it back on to our ever-expanding list of places to go!