JK - A rather uneventful day in which we took a long bus journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. It was estimated that it would take 8 hours, but due to a driver that was heavy on the accelerator and horn, we made it in under 7! The only point of interest was when we stopped to buy and eat tarantulas - a Cambodian delicacy. Originally they were eaten because during Pol Pots reign Cambodians had very little to eat so reverted to eating what they could find. They...

JK - After lunch we headed to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Much of the Palace is currently closed because the king died recently. You can still see people mourning his death outside. We did however get to see inside the Silver Pagoda. It got its name from the 5000 silver tiles weighing 1kg each that were used in its construction. It's other name is Wat Preah Keo - Pagoda of the Emerald Buddha (another one) due to the 17th century statue made of Baccarat ...

JK - After we had been to Tuol Sleng Museum, we made the 15km journey southwest to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Before being used as a place to execute 1000's of Cambodians it was an orchard and Chinese graveyard. As the numbers of people being executed increased the Khmer Rouge needed another place to carry out their executions and so moved to one of 300 Killing Fields in Cambodia. Most of the 17000 prisoners at Tuol Sleng were executed at Choeung Ek. It...

Tk: first stop on our tough days itinerary was the tuol sleng genocide museum. This building was a school until the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, when it was used as a prison to detain anyone who was suspected not to be fully supportive of the regime. I want to put this place into context first with an explanation of my understanding of the events that took place within my own life time. Up until 1953 Cambodia was a French colony when it gained independen...

TK: it was a shame that New Years Eve fell on a day when we were between the great cities of Saigon and Phnom Penh, as our new years eve countdown took place in our hotel lobby drinking overpriced warm beer! in the smaller towns they simply don't care about new years eve and all the bars closed at 10pm. we woke up just before 7am on new years day, which was the time when the UK was at midnight, so we raised a glass of orange juice at the breakfast table to toas...