Day 22

After a long bus journey we arrived at the Cambodian border and crossed the land crossing. A land crossing is a strange experience, as there is an area of land in between the two countries, which is no mans land. Gambling is illegal in Cambodia and Thailand, and so as you walk through the 700m of no mans land towards Cambodia, there are hundreds of massive casinos. It's a crazy experience, it has a lawless feel to it, as there aren't any police or council/government that runs the district. The area is policed by the neighbouring countries, but it felt like something out of mad max. We entered Cambodia jumped on the bus and were at our hotel within 3 hours. The hotel was in Siem Reap, and was quite good and had wifi, tv, etc, which we weren't expecting. We thought it was going to be backpacker accommodation, so it was a pleasant surprise. That evening we were told that we were going outfor a Cambodian meal, however we were in for a surprise. We jumped on one of the organised tuktuks and within 2 minutes we were off the main roads, and were bombing down dark and flooded muddy tracks. We drove into a shanty town/slum and to a clinic. The people who were living in this area were some of the poorest people you could imagine. The kids were running around the streets in rags while their parents were working, it was very sad. We had a Cambodian guide who showed us around the clinic where they treat the local people for free as part of a charity. We were told that this was a not for profit project, which had transformed this centre for prostitution into a normal village. Apparently people were roped into prostitution to survive in this village before the charity came in. It was heart breaking to see these children who had nothing, yet they were so pleased to see us and were smiling and wanted to hug us and shake our hands. It felt like we were on comic relief, it was a eyeopener. We then drove to a local school, where they taught locals and children English, so that they can improve their chances of survival and quality of life. The parents would leave 7 year olds to look after 3 years olds while they were at work. At the school we were greeted by hundreds of children ranging in ages who were learning English and we sat in their classes and had conversations with them. We were then taken to a restaurant/hut where locals had been taught to cook and the restaurant trade. Dinner was paid for by the tour, and we had traditional Cambodian cuisine, which consisted of various currys and Thai type dishes. I also had another insect, this time a grasshopper….this time it wasn't too bad. Back on the tuktuks and back onto the bumpy swamped roads, there were at least 2 occasions when it almost tipped over. Luckily we got back in one piece.

Day 23-24

We were up at 4am…..yes 4am, to travel to angkor wat temple. The reason for the insanely early start was to see the sun rise at angkor wat. We were introduced to our guide for the day, a little cambodian fella called Rum. He was actually very funny and his English was very good. He entertained me throughout the day with his knowledge of cockney rhyming slang and English phrases, such as " crème crackered", the "rain in spain falls mainly on the plain", and "got the horn". He was eager to learn more phrases and rhyming slang, and I duly obliged, teaching him a couple of naughty ones as well. We visited 4 temples, and had lunch in a local café. The local kids were trying to sell postcards for $1. The unofficial currency of Cambodia is the US$, and majority of trades is done in $US. The kids would say $1 for 10 cards, and would then count to 10 in English. They could also count to ten, in Italian, Spanish, german, French and god knows how many other languages. Quite entertaining. The humidity was unbelievable and everyone was covered in sweat and were boiling. The temples were amazing although I did spend the first 30 minutes paranoid that I was going to be bitten by a mozzie and contract dengy fever, which was a very high risk in that area. Luckily I didn't get bitten although we did get soaked. We had been lucky with the weather, and just as the tour was coming to a close, the heavens opened…big time. Full blown jungle rain chucked it down. Within minutes the streets and land was flooded, Ive never seen so much rain fall so quickly. Luckily, Kelly had brought the ponchos and we managed to keep our top half dry. Back to the hotel and we had a couple of hours before dinner. We went out to a restaurant where a traditional Cambodian dance show was performed. Dinner was great and was dirt cheap once again, about $5 for both of us. After dinner we went out on a pretty boozy night out, and much alcohol was consumed… including large buckets and yards of beer (huge towers of beer, with a tap on the bottom to self serve) We went to a bar with graffiti all over the wall, and they give you a pen, to add your tag. Home by 2am and fairly out of my tree. Woke up the next morning….awwwwfffullll. Went to breakfast still drunk and then returned to bed until 1130, which was checking out time. I had a 7 hour coach journey to look forward to on a public coach/bus, with the locals. I still felt awful, a mixture of hangover and malaria pills, and felt like I was going to vomit at any point. We got a bus to the local bus station where we had a 15 minute wait for our coach. As soon as we got off the bus we were engulfed by locals trying to sell things to us. They were competing for business quite aggressively. As I mentioned I was feeling like I was possessed and was going to die, and just wanted a can of coke, and everyone to leave me alone. One girl approached me with a can and was attacked by another girl, who thought that I was her customer. Hilarious. I decided that maybe if I went to the toilet I might feel better. I walked to the local toilet, where I was greeted by a man with one tooth and 2 gammy legs demanding that I pay 25cents for the toilet, which was common in this part of the world. The toilet, as per usual, was a hole in the ground and no toilet paper. To flush the toilet, you had to put your hand in a bucket of stagnant water and grab a small scoop and pour the water down the hole yourself to flush….nice. As I left the black hole of Cambodia aka trap 2, and approached the sink, the toothless man was grinning. I turned the tap and there wasn't any water…..terrific. He gestured that there wasn't any water and it didn't matter, I gestured back that it did matter, and he limped towards me and then past me to the urinal. He turned a valve on the urinal and water began gushing out everywhere, and gestured with his toothless sundried raisin face that I wash my hands in the place that I had relieved myself in 30mins earlier. I did, and it was a weird experience. After my can of coke, I felt a bit more human and began a 7 hour journey to Phnom Penh. We arrived at the hotel, dumped our gear and went straight to dinner on the water front. It was an orphanage/restaurant. Many years ago, the restaurant took on 5 orphans into their care and trained them up to work as waiters and cooks. The locals, hearing of this, started to leave babies on the step, and before long, the owners had no choice but to open an orphanage. All the profits of the restaurant now go to the orphanage. Dinner was great and back to the hotel to bed.

Day 25

After breakfast we knew we were going to be in for an emotional rollercoaster, as we were going to be visiting the Khmer Rouge torture camps and prisons, and then off to the killing fields. The Khmer rouge were a vicious regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-79. They took the country over by force, under the pretense of liberating the country. The leader Polpot, was a maoist communist and the leader of the Khmer Rouge army. The army marched everyone from the cities into the country, where they were forced into agricultural slave labour. Anyone who had worked for the previous government in any form or who was educated was sent to torture camps and exterminated. During the 4 years of power, 3 million people were exterminated, including men, women and children. The museum was full of pictures of corpses and torture victims (disembowlment, removal of faces, limbs ripped off, and other unimaginable experiences), it was quite shocking. You could never imagine a 1st world country having pictures of these victims on the walls. Our guide, explained that many of his family were murdered and he was a 9 year old boy and was sent to the fields to farm for over 12 hours a day, with 2 small bowls of porridge to eat a day. He was forced to eat insects in the field to survive. After the museum he took us to the "killing fields", which were where the people were sent to be executed and buried in mass graves. In this one site, there were hundreds of thousands of bodies. Only a few sites had been excavated, and the government decided that was enough and left the rest of the field alone. As you walk around the fields between the roped off excavated sites, you notice things in the ground. During heavy rains, which had happened in the previous days, bones and pieces of clothing come to the service. Its horrendous. Everywhere you look, there are bits of bone and cloth sticking out of the floor. He showed us the killing tree, this was where babies wereexterminated. As you can imagine, there were many other horrendous crimes committed, that I will not go into more detail on.

We then went to lunch at a homeless restaurant. The owners, take on, and train homeless children to 5 star level. These students then go onto work at the top restaurants in the city. Lunch was great and home for a nap. 1 hour later, while Kelly strolled around the town picking up snacks for tomorrows long journey, a 5 of the lads and I went to a Cambodian kick boxing fight. It was phenomenal, much like thai boxing, but more aggressive and brawl like. We then met up with the rest of the group and headed out for dinner. Mr Ron, our killing fields tour guide had invited us to his house for dinner. 10 of us jumped in TukTuks and headed to his house. He lived in a poor part of town and as we whizzed in and out of the dark alleyways, you couldn't help but feel vunerable. We felt especially nervous, as a german guy on our tour had been mugged by a tuk tuk driver with a machete days earlier. Although this had been mainly due to a mouthy English guy he met that evening who had offended the driver. We arrived at his house, and discovered he ran an English school from his basement for locals out of his own pocket. We sat with the students, all of whom were around 12 years old, for 30 mins. We then climbed the stairs to his living/bedroom for dinner. It was a large room, that slept 13 people, and they had laid a large rug out of us to sit on. On the way up the stairs, we noticed he had a large box full of live tarantulas, that were trying to escape….very scary. Dinner was fantastic, various curries and stir frys. At the end of dinner the host brought out some local rice wine, which had been fermented with tarantulas in it. He poured us all shots of this spider brew, and we drank them. After a second shot, I volunteered to eat a tarantula leg. The texture was like a pipe cleaner, or a bit of dry hay, and it tasted of the rice wine. It was pretty plain and was easier to eat than the dragon fly and grasshopper. We donated some pads and pens to the school and then caught a tuktuk home. Skyped mum and dad and went to bed.

Day 26

Up at 630am, breakfast and then embarked on a 6 hour coach journey to SihanoukVille. Once again this was on a public bus. We had seats booked, but the walkway between the seats and steps of the coach had locals sat on them, it was pretty tight. An hour into the journey, I needed to use the little boys room, and enquired if there was a toilet on board. The locals pointed downstairs. As I climbed down the steps towards the luggage hold, there was a small door, probably around 4ft tall, like something out of alice in wonderland. Then the realisation hit me….that was the toilet. I crouched into a squat and climber into the toilet. There I stood hunched over at almost a 90degree angle aiming straight down. Ive attached a photo to the blog of me in the toilet. The journey went quite quickly, especially as I had been reading the autobiography of one of the survivors of Khmer Rouge S-21 prison camp. We had met him at the prison, had a photo, and bought his book….very shocking. We arrived at the hotel, and then hit the beach. As soon as we arrived at the beach at SihanoukVille, we were swarmed with "hawkers" or local sales people. Selling everything from beads to manicures. Kelly and I were used to these people, and ignored them until they became bored, however the other girls in the group were bothered for quite a while. After a few hours we returned to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We went back to the beach for dinner and found a bar with a barbeque special…$3 for a whole fish, and 2 large shrimps…what a deal. As soon as we sat down we were bothered by "hawkers" the whole meal. We must have been approached over 100 times, ranging from tiny children selling homemade fireworks, blind men singing while led by their 5 year old daughters and an old men with no legs crawling up onto the table. It was very unpleasant. Back home and off to bed.

Day 27

We went to a beach, suggested by our guide and got a tuk tuk to the edge of the beach. After a 45min walk we finally reached the bar that the guide had suggested. It was phenomenal, pure paradise and was the relaxation we needed after this action packed tour. All day in the sun and then back to the hotel to watch the Liverpool highlights online. That night we met downstairs in the bar had a bit of dinner and then took part in a quiz night. We went to bed early as we had to be up at 630am the next morning to leave for Vietnam.