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...

JK - For some the morning started with a cycle around the island on which our home stay was located. I didn't really fancy it so carried on with my hammock swinging to try and finish my very exciting book.When everyone arrived back we had breakfast which consisted of the Vietnamese delicacy, baguette with la vachce qui rit with an omelette on the side.We then had to make our way to Chau Doc.This was only really a stopping point before we crossed the border in to ...

JK - Today we traveled by bus and boat to an island near Vinh Long for our home stay. However, before we arrived to the island we made a few stops along the way. First stop was a temple (and headquarters) for Cao Daism (meaning high tower or palace and is a euphemism for God) in Tay Ninh. This religion was founded in the 1920's and is unique to Vietnam. It combines secular and religious philosophies of East and West including Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, na...