Hi  folks. Just to bring you up to speed.... sorry it's been so long since i managed a blog entry. I've so far made my way through three countries and the itinerary has allowed for very little free time. I'm currently in Cambodia. We arrived in Phnom pen on 20th of December. On first day we visited Prison s21, the main brain centre in phnom penh of pol pots regime of terro. Although it is important to be aware of the past to understand a place, we all found the experience pretty harrowing. It is reckoned over 30,000 people were taken to the prison and held captive or sent to labour camps , and of this number only 7 survived. We met one of the seven survivors. Fortunately when he was arrested  pol pots men learnt that he was a mechanic and pol pot needed someone to fix his state cars. This saved his life. Sadly his family and children were all slaughtered when he was taken prisoner. 15 years on and he is able to talk about it with such calm and humility. I asked him how he felt about pol pot and his regime. He said that at the time he wanted to kill him but that Cambodia had no choice but to try and focus on the future. They were left with nothing after pol pot and they needed evry resource they had to try and establish some sense of a normal life again. I really admired him for his strength and hi coping mechanism for hate. After the prison visit we were taken to the killing firlds about 5km outside the city. Prisoners when they had served their usefulness were taken here to be slaughtered . Literally millions of people are laid out here in shallow graves. They are so recent that you can see bits of bone and  corners of cloth coming through the earth. To be honest it's difficult to write about because it was so barbaric. They've set up a lovely memorial to the people who dies but all of us felt it was too much. After such a traumatic morning, we did something much nicer in the afternoon we went to vist a local orphanage. It was such an amazing place. Despite the fact tht the staff were running the centre with no government aid only donations, the children were so happy. They were clean and clearly really well cared for. They had lessons every evening for two hours and practised dance for an hour every morning. They put on dances for us and t was amazing to watch. They were obviously really happy kids. I took loads of photos and couldn't stop picking them up! It was lovely to see. We were asked to make a donation towards tice and all left $10 which would make a big difference. After phnom penh, we took a flight to siem reap, the site o the famous Angkor Wat temples. They date from the 12th century and are so well preserved that it's no wonder they are listed as one of the wonders of the world. Angkor Watt is infact only one of 100 temples on the area around siem reap. Tomorrow (christmas day) we are waking up at 0430 yikes!! to watch the sun rise over angor wat. It;s meant to be an unmissable event.

After much conversation with the providers of this blog it turns out the site does not support any apple software so am never going to be able to uplod any photos. I have set up a new site at 

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/57082596@N07/page2/

If you click on this or copy and paste into the search bar i oogle etc. you will be able to see the photos i have taken so far. They are not very well organised but the date will give an indication about where i have been . Hope you enjoy andmerry christmas to you all xxxxxxx