This morning we have a flight at 9:45 to Siem Reap so we need to be up and ready for leaving at 8. In true form we leave stuff late and just about scrape in breakfast before we have to leave. I’m back on the omlettes by the way.

We grab a bus to the airport and Rafa takes charge of all the admin stuff. This time though, concerned at how much our purchases will have affected our baggage allowance, I hang around to see how much our bags weigh. Under 15 kilos a piece, so we’re still fine. We wander through security and into the premises of a splendid looking “Costa” type coffe place where most of us grab what turns out to be a very nice coffee. Before too long it’s time to board the plane for the flight and so that’s just what we do. The flight is quite a short one but they still give us a muffin and some water to help pass the time. These little flights are quite cool.

Once on the ground we admire the entirely manual baggage carousel (one man shoves bags through, the other shoves them along runners) and grab our bags as soon as they pop through the flaps. On the bus Rafaele explains the plan of action for today – as soon as we’ve checked in to the hotel we’ll set off for the temples of Angkor Wat and try to see as much as we can today, hopefully giving us more free time tomorrow and less chance of folks being “templed out.” This sounds good to all and so once we’ve checked in and ensured our attire is suitable for temple seeing, we meet in the lobby ready to board the bus.

When we return to the lobby Vantha, our guide for the next two days, is already there, and once I’ve quickly ran back to the room to get our camera we are ready to go. The temples aren’t too far away, and after what feels like less than half an hour we are there.

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten then names of the individual sites we visited, perhaps my fellow travellers can help me out there if they read this. I’ll have a look in the book too when I can. All fall under the umbrella of Angkor Wat, but they each have individual names with Angkor Wat itself being the most impressive. At the first site Vantha stops us at one of the entrances, of which this place has 5, one facing each compass direction except for (I think) East which has two. Running towards the entrance is a road flanked by a ballustrade made up of statues essentially playing tug of war with a naga, or three headed snake. This depicts a famous scene from Hindu mythology of Vishnu and the churning of the milk. Look it up, it’s a bit weird. Vishnu appears as a turtle with the mountain on his back and the demons and the good guys basically play tug of war with the naga to churn up milk from the sea. Yeah, I know. What immediately springs to attention with Vantha is his depth of knowledge. He explains everything in the most incredible detail, expressing admirable knowledge of every aspect of what we see. He is an absolutely splendid guide to have with us at sites containing so much history.

As we move on into the temple we are told of the construction methodology of the temple, which basically amounts to plonking perfectly shaped blocks of sandstone on top of one another with no bonding agent whatsoever. Looking at the buildings from any sort of distance you would struggle to see the joins as the blocks are so perfectly cut. When you do get up close you see that the Walls all around are adorned in the most detailed and intricate carvings, some entirely decorative but many depicting legendary scenes from Buddhist and Hindu tales or battles of ages gone by. In some parts the carvings are incomplete because the King who had ordered them died before the completion, and (I think) what seems to happen is the next King orders the construction of a new gaff. Vantha tells us this place would have taken around 40 years to be constructed to the level we see now, and it was knocked up in around the 8th century. For it to remain (mostly) standing after such a long time and for the details of the carvings to also still be there is pretty damn incredible. Hats off to the construction team and artisans of the 8th century.

Our next temple is one which is impressive but for different reasons. Though much of the temple is still, roughly speaking, standing, the majority is dilapidated and currently being either put back together or reconstructed. What is impressive though about this temple is that trees have began to grow atop the parts of the temple themselves. Imagine a tree just growing out of the top of your house, it’s a bit like that. We get a lot of good snaps in here and marvel at how the trees are either destroying parts of the temple, or holding it together. According to what I think was a bit of a guess by Vantha, many of the trees are over 150 years old, standing atop buildings which (I think) date from around the 10th century. As we are leaving we also see a stripey dog, one which we guess has been painted. If it hasn’t, that was one weird tiger and one crazy dog.

As it begins to get dark we round off the temples there and head back to the hotel for a nap before dinner. A long day of flying and temple walking in the sun is just cause I reckon. After the nap we round up in the foyer for our penultimate dinner as a group in a place Rafaele has booked for us in the brilliantly named Pub Street (*though this is on the signpost I guess it’s probably not the proper name for the street).

The restaurant is called Soup Dragon, and I think the food is rather nice. Though some meals come out quite late, my meal was great and Mrs Tom’s was too (though she was the last person served). Those who ordered lamb weren’t hugely impressed but their meals looked alright to Mrs Tom and myself, and to be fair it’s probably not too often they cook lamb, what with there being no sheep here and all.

After dinner we pop off to the night market to have a look round and are pleasantly surprised to find what we later decide is the nicest market we’ve seen on the whole trip. There are stalls selling things we might actually want to buy, which we’ve not really seen since Luang Prabang. I buy myself another beer t-shirt and then find a stall selling t-shirts with tuk tuks on which I decide I want, but we have ran out of money for the evening. We decide we’ll go back on our own after everyone else has gone and pick one up then.

Whilst in the market I happen across a stall selling nice looking photos with a young local chap minding things. He asks me the usual starters and I ask about the pictures. He hasn’t taken them, a Canadian man has, but it’s the basis for a little chat anyway. When he asks where I’m from he follows up by telling me he has been to Hawaii. When I ask how come he tells me that he was injured by a landmine, and shows me his blackened, skinny left leg. Local doctors wanted to cut it off, but another took him to Hawaii where he spent a year, and learned English whilst he was there. His leg is much better now, he never had to lose it, and though he cannot walk any great distance he can still walk. He’s now back in Cambodia and going to school, and working in the night market in the evening to help him keep up his English. He says that when he returned to Cambodia he had actually forgotten the Khmer language, but he’s ok with it now. His name is Sok, and he is a very brave and very nice young man. It’s easy to forget that there are so many victims of landmines in Cambodia, and a vast number were laid by their own people during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Sok is one of the lucky ones, and good luck to him.

Commited to a very early start in the morning, we catch a tuk tuk back to the hotel and get straight to bed. We’ve decided to take the opportunity to watch the sun rise over the Angkor War temple in the morning, for which we will need to leave at 4:50….. Hmmm….

Today I awake with a massive headache which doesn’t get me off to the best of starts. It pretty much lasts all day too.

After breakfast we have an emotinal trip to S.21 and the Killing Fields. S.21 is the genocide museum, and the building itself is an old secondary school which Pol Pot converted to a prison during his period in charge before being overthrown. It’s called S.21 because it was security office 21. We learn that before becoming a “mass murdering fuck head” Pol Pot was actually both a teacher and a monk, hard to believe. The prison itself housed over 17,000 people, none of which were ever released, and none of which ever escaped. Classrooms were converted into blocks of 11 cells per room for men and 18 for women, and inside the cell prisoners were shackled at the ankles and given only a US army issue bullet box to go to the toilet in.

Before the visit I had heard of Pol Pot and knew he was a crazy mentalist who killed a lot of his own people, but none of the details. As soon as he took charge he ordered the city of Phnom Penh to be emptied, so people who had come to the city were made to leave. During his reign Phnom Penh was referred to as a ghost town. He also had bizarre distorted views about how communism should be implemented. People who were teachers and doctors, basically anyone who was educated were rounded up. They were told that they would have a role to play in helping to build a new and better society, and then they were taken out and killed. This includes women and children, and if a mother was pregnant it didn’t matter, if she had a young baby, that was killed too. The ideology of communism infers a base level of equality and assumes no differences between the people, but rather than raise the standards and education levels of the lower achieving portion of the population, Pol Pot wanted to lower everyone to the same basic level to build a population of manual workers. It was a kind of social experiment which people now refer to as “year zero” – he was basically trying to start a society from scratch.

People in the prisons were tortured and interrogated, women were raped. A climbing frame which had been used for children to climb ropes was converted into a gallows where people were hung upside down by their feet and dunked into filthy stinking water. Many women, after being tortured and raped, tried to kill themselves by jumping from the upper balconies, so barbed wire was installed around the whole place to prevent anyone else trying the same.

Inside the prison we are shown beds on which some of the more priveleged prisoners slept, though still shackled to it by the ankles. In block B we see the original cells, 2m x 0.8m and no doors – no-one can escape if they are shackled at the ankles and chained to the cell. Prisoners can see each other, but they need permission to do anything – use the toilet, sleep, change from one position to another; there is certainly no talking.

Every prisoner has their picture taken, once from the front, once from the side, as does every soldier. Many of the pictures are displayed throughout the museum, as are photographs of corpses and the bodies of people after they’ve been tortured. Mr Rarn tells us all the different ways people were tortured and interrogated, how the new generation of soldiers try to kill the last, that people have their throats cut or are beaten to death with iron bars. Not all pictures are still available though as before Pol Pot’s people were sent packing after the Vietnamese finally won out, they tried to destroy all evidence of the regime by burning it.

Mr Rarn was born in 1970 and Pol Pot took charge in 1975, when Mr Rarn was just 6. His family were separated, and from what he knows his father died in the jungle, likely from malaria. Some of his siblings died because they starved to death. He himself was sent out into the fields to work, at 6 years old, doing exactly whatever was asked of him. Though thankfully it seems none of his family were murdered by the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot’s soldiers, the regime clearly had an impact on his family. It was very touching to be there with him as he told us about his family and what happened to them.

All of us very quiet and subdued, we eventually board the bus again and set off for the Killing Fields. This area was where people were brought en mass to be slaughtered and buried. Very often the people themselves would not know the fate that awaited them, because they were being told that they were going to be set free. Once they arrived at the destination though I’m sure there was no disguising what lay ahead. Initially everyone who was brought in one day was killed, but because so many were being brought in the end they had to erect a building to keep them in whilst they waited to be murdered. The building no longer remains. Mr Rarn talks us around the site, and we get to the first mass grave. Many have been excavated to try to understand more about exactly what happened, and also to try to give an accurate figure to the amount of people who were killed under the regime, estimated to be around 3 million. Hundreds of bodies are thrown into the graves, some having their heads removed, mostly the women are naked. If graves are dug to the point where the number of thrown in in one day does not fill it up, someone goes through it to make sure everyone is dead (if the iron bars didn’t do it their throats are cut instead) then the bodies are covered in something (I’ve forgotten what) to surpress the smell and the grave is filled the following day. When a grave is filled, the soldiers are not so fussy as to whether the people in it are completely dead, and many are buried whilst still alive.

Walking from grave to grave Mr Rarn points out fragments of bones and teeth that the rainfall has uncovered, these litter that path that we have to walk from one grave to the next. We are told that the women are mostly buried naked because when they are told they are to be set free they are given a nice new dress to wear. When they arrive at the site of their killing, the dresses are removed to give to other prisoners when they are told the same lies. Scattered around the site are are many remains of clothing of murdered prisoners.

Next to one grave is a huge tree, said to have been used to kill babies by smashing their heads against before tossing them in to their grave where they are buried with their mothers. Another tree is used to hang a loudspeaker from to drown out the noises of wailing, presumably for the benefit of the soldiers. When Mr Rarn tells us these stories he tells us they are relayed by a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been back to the site to tell tales of what happened as he worked there as a driver. This man apparently tells that he only ever beat 5 people and killed only one, when closely watched by an official. Just one person in 5 years, Mr Rarn doesn’t believe a word, he would have been killed himself. He seemed quite upset that this chap is now a guide freely visiting the killing fields to recount his stories.

Just away from the graves is a huge stupa which contains nothing but piles and piles of skulls, all recovered from graves at the site. They have been cleaned, and the stupa must be 10 metres tall, the skulls stacked on shelves all the way to the top.

The visit knocks us all out a little, and we silently make our way back to the bus where we make our way back to the centre of Phnom Penh.

On the way back Darren, Summer and Steven decide they would like to visit the Russian market, wheras Gaynor, Mrs Tom and myself decide that we would rather visit the National Museum and the Grand Palace, so we drop off the others and head for the riverside part of town. Rafaele suggests a place for lunch called Friends the Restaurant, which is linked to the Makphet restaurant we ate in in Laos. The restaurant employs and trains street children to given them culinary and hospitality skills, as well as the confidence to be part of a better society. Just as before the food is fantastic, very well cooked and beautifully presented. Also the same as Makphet, there is s shop with the restaurant which sells items made by the families of the students, sold to support the foundation.

Once we have finished lunch we head off with Gaynor and Barry over to the National Museum. As I need the loo, Gaynor and Barry head off into the museum with a loose plan that we’ll meet them outside the exit of the palace at 4. We spend an hour checking out the museum exhibits. Before we went, Rafa had told us that it now housed many of the original sculptures and statues from the Angkor Wat temples as many of these had been stolen by thieves to sell. These items date from around the 8th century and it was very cool to see things that old, in many cases still standing in extremely good nick. Other items dated from before the 5th century, referred to as pre-Angkorian. There is also a section of the museum showing a recent excavation of items dating many centuries back which was also exciting.

Once we had finished in the museum tiredness had taken the better of us and so we decided to give the Grand Palace a miss, opting instead to wander over to the bank of the river and sit and rest in the shade, passing the hour to wait for Gaynor and Barry. As we sit we are approached by a girl and what looks like her mother (though I don’t think we ever quite establish their relationship) who tries to sell us water. As we already have some, unlike most of the sellers she is happy to take no for an answer and instead sits to talk to us. Most coversations with locals across the region begin the same way – “where are you from?” – but many also end there. This girl continues in very good English to ask us many more questions and we find out that she is 17, and lives here in Phnom Penh. She goes to school but as English lessons are not free she works to be able to support her English classes. She points to a patch further up from where we sit and tells us that this is where her and her family sleep because they cannot afford a place to stay. As we sit a policeman approaches that I thought was there ensuring we were not being harrassed, but the girl tells us a different story and Mrs Tom tends to agree. She says that the policemen see young pretty girls with no money and assume that they can just have them, so she doesn’t like the police much. All the time he is there she avoids his gaze. It was eye opening to speak to her, but before too long we have to leave to go to meet Barry and Gaynor at the palace exit to share a tuk tuk back to the hotel, so we say goodbye to the girl and move on.

We wait around the exit of the palace for a while but it is difficult to avoid the streams of tuk tuk drivers, beggars and street sellers so we move along. Just after 4 we decide that Barry and Gaynor have maybe gotten held up, so we decide to get one of the many tuk tuks offered to us back to the hotel. This chap was quite sweet and swung his tuk tuk around from the other side of the road across 4 lanes of traffic so that we didn’t have to cross. He didn’t seem hugely convincing when he said he could take us back to our hotel though. As we set of he went winding around some back streets we didn’t really recognise until eventually he pulled up behind another driver, where he stopped to ask for directions. Having gotten what he needed he set off and we were on our way. I got the impression he might have been new to tuk tuk driving, and he wore a helmet but without the chin strap done up. We paid him his fair and a small tip for being jolly nice.

Back at the hotel we had a little time before dinner so we settled down for a nap. It’s tiring you know, all this sunshine. Dinner is at Romdeng, a training restaurant which is part of the same group as the “Friends – the Restaurant” place we had been to for lunch. Rafa tells me this is where the students work before moving onto their final training at the “Friends” restaurant. Though not as slick as the “Friends” place the food and the service is still very good, and I’m again impressed with how well turned out the dishes are and how well the staff cope with things. These projects really are a great thing, great for the kids, and great for the customer who gets great food from students who are trying very hard to impress.

Suitably stuffed we make our way back to the hotel, but we really want something to drink before bedtime. The hotel has a restaurant but no bar, as we find out does the adjacent hotel. There is a club in between the two whose sounds could be heard from outside booming away, but we spot a bar across the street that looks like it might be ok. We are welcomed in and ushered towards some seats near a stage where a girl is singing. It looks to be a karaoke type setup, only I can’t see a screen. Also, I can’t see any non-Cambodian people either, and when we spot that the only page of the menu with English on is the beers page (I was fine) we began to feel a little out of place. After failing to convey “vodka” to the barman Darren settles for a coke and the rest of us have a beer. As we sit we witness a blind man do a bit of singing, then some sort of stag act involving chaps leaping about in masks and body paint like some sort of tribal scene. Perhaps it is a talent show. Although we are well looked after I think our individuality makes us a bit of a novelty so we attract the eyes of the waiting staff a fair bit, so it is just a little uncomfortable. Once we’ve finished our drinks we decide to leave and get back to the hotel across the road. As we cross I notice that there is actually a bar next door, showing football and probably not quite as intimidating as the other one, but then if we’d gone for that we wouldn’t have had the experience, so it’s all good. Another day done.

7:30 seems very early to us right now, and that was only the time we had to leave. As the alarm went off at 6 I wished we’d had more time to sleep, but we needed to be up. We just about managed to scrape in breakfast before we jumped on the coach and headed for the Chu Chi tunnels.

It was around an hour or so drive to the tunnels, and we were back with our young guide Dang today. On arrival at the tunnels Rafa bought our tickets for us and we made our way to the first part of the tour, a 10 minute video of the Chu Chi folks using the tunnels and a quick run through of the history. Once the video was over Dang talked us through a mock up of the tunnels beside the tv screen and explained that there were three levels, the first of which was built prior to the American invasion. They were dug using custom made picks and dirt was carried away in handmade baskets. Once the Americans came they were driven out of their overground villages and so went completely underground, digging a further two levels of tunnels. There were meeting rooms, sleeping rooms, kitchen rooms, a whole host of them. All in all the tunnels extend for over 200km, all dug by hand. Once the Americans came the Chu Chi people only moved above ground at night, silently setting traps for the Americans and carrying dirt to places like rice fields or rubber plantations where it would not be noticed.

The traps were really quite neat. As they did not have access to guns the Chu Chi used booby trap style traps, swinging doors covered in leaves where the victim would fall onto sharpened bamboo below, foot traps of various methods used to impale the legs of the victims. There were also traps set in the tunnels themselves in case they were compromised. However, the tunnels were built just about big enough for the average Vietnamese person, and the Americans, despite knowing where many of the tunnel entrances were were just too fat to get into them.

Another way the tunnels were used was to give the Americans the impression that they were fighting far greater numbers than they were, as they would be ambushed from one side before their attackers would scuttle along the tunnels and ambush them from another, with the aericans thinking that there were people on both sides. Very smart.

To avoid detection cookig was only done at night, and everyone wore rubber sandals to avoid leaving trails and making noise. Vents for kitchens also carried the smoke sometimes miles away to help avoid suspiscion, and the area around the vent exit was dampened and covered in leaves to give the impression that the smoke was just mist. Air holes, to avoid the noses of dogs brought in to help detect the presence of Chu Chi people, were smeared with chilli and lime to throw the four legged enemy off the scent.

One little stretch of tunnels has been made big enough for us fat westerners to climb through, so we had a little scuttle and got a feeling for how things were. We also hopped through from one of the meeting rooms to a kitchen room via a tunnel, where I was happy to see the bat that had taken up residence fly in the same direction as we were and not back over our heads. Steven, shit scared of spiders, was a little freaked out by an eight-legged friend he met whilst crawling behind me.

Once our tunnel adventure was over we checked out of the Chu Chi tunnels exhibition area and got back on the bus, our guide Dang coming with us all the way to the Cambodian border, presumably as he needed the bus to take him back. An hour later we were there, and with our bags loaded onto a trolley (pulled by a little chap, not a machine) we said goodbye to Dang and our driver and began our border crossing.

It’s the first border crossing I’ve ever done on foot, not counting our little trips to Calais, which in any case usually involve some ferrying about on a terminal bus. This was literally being dropped off a few hundred yards from the border control, walking up to the offices, getting through immigration, then, security, then visa check, then health check, and finally through to the other side. There is a lot of wasted time during the crossing as you fill in one form, get up, go through a check, fill in another, go through a check, fill in another, and so on. I’m not quite sure why they can’t just give you a bundle of forms (which mostly ask the same questions) and then let you stroll through unimpeded. At the health check station those of us unfortunate to cough have a temperature reader thingy pointed at our heads and zapped. The Cambodian official tries to convince Rafaele that he needs to pay for something but he’s wise to the game and we get through without having to bribe anyone. Although reasonably quick, all in all I think the crossing experience takes a fair while longer than it needs to. No doubt the Cambodians will take my opinions on board.

Lunch today was at a road side place just past the border crossing which looked, quite frankly, shit. No-one really fancies much of what we see on the rather grim looking menu, but somehow a common concensus on the chicken noodle soup arrives and so I add another to the list. Actually it’s not that bad really, though I could have quite happily skipped that meal.

After lunch we have another couple of hours or so on the bus before we reach the hotel. What strikes me as we enter Cambodia and get closer and closer to Phnom Penh is that it is so much dirtier than anywhere we’ve been so far, there is tons of litter everywhere. Then, as we stop for a ferry crossing to get across a river, the poverty. People of all ages immediately bombard the bus to beg for money, tapping on the windows. Some are trying to sell postcards, bangles and other crap no-one really wants whilst some just have their hands out. It’s a horrible experience, the desperation is tough to bear.

On the journey Rafa gives a bit of a history lesson on Cambodia, and eventually I think most of us end up nodding off. In between naps I am again plugging the diary deficit. It is quite a lot of effort to keep this going, but I’ve sort of committed to it now, and I’ve decided that I actually quite like writing for fun. I think when I get home I’ll crack out a hilarious Hollywood blockbuster.

We are again tremendously spoiled with our hotel, though there is no special treatment this time. As we’re arriving late we have about an hour and a half to freshen up before going to dinner. Tonight’s dinner is quite a special affair as we are to be eating at the house of a local Cambodian guide that the intrepid folks have gotten to know through their work in the area. Mr Rarn lives in a house in a more out of centre part of town with his wife and three daughters, and lives with two other families, a total of around 30 people.

Cambodian tradition says that when a couple marry they move in with the parents of the woman, so the other families in the house are essentially Mr Rarn’s in-laws. The family introduce themselves, but they do not eat with us. It turns out we are actually eating in one ofthe rooms where people sleep, and we’re all sat on the floor. For tonight’s dinner we have teamed upcwith another intrepid group as Mr Rarn had already agreed for them to come along, and as he doesn’t invite people every day this was our only opportunity whilst in Phnom Penh.

The food is prepared by the family and is a huge and very tasty spread of Cambodian dishes, including a cracking curry. There’s also spring rolls, a green salad, spare ribs, noodle dishes and of course rice. There is far too much for everyone to eat and so there is a lot left over for which I feel quite guilty for. I wod have loved to have eaten more because it was fantastic, but I just couldn’t squeeze it in.

For desert there is a rather unusual dish served up first – deep fried tarantulas. Whilst these have been marinaded in honey and lime I still don’t fancy a go, and am glad when the pineapple slices arrive as an alternative. One or two of the other group have a go, some try a leg, Rafa and the other tour leader Matt show us how it’s done too, but the main thing I’ll remember is the look of absolute brown knickers terror and disgust that occupied spider hating Steven’s face when the spiders were served up.

We learn that Mr Rarn runs an English class for the people who live near him, but sadly for us because it’s Sunday the class does not run, it would have been nice to be able to help out. He does this just to help out the children nearby because though education is free, English classes are not. For many people in South East Asia learning to speak English is a way to a better life. We begin to get the impression that Mr Rarn is a very good man, and we later find out that he supports the education of all his nieces and nephews that live with him too.

Once dinner is over the family clean up and I play empty tin can skittles with the youngest of Mr Rarn’s children. Shortly afterwards we let the family have some peace and get ready for bed, and head off to Raf’s recommended pub where the other group are also congregated, thanking everyone before we leave.

The pub is quite lively but this is mainly due to the folks from the othe group, larger than ours, that have occupied the pool table area. Not much room for us round there, we situate ourselves down by the bar where there is a tv showing a live premier league game. Once we have our drinks it’s not long before Rafa decides he and I should play pool, so we end up playing doubles against a pair from the other group. This pool table is more like the same width as the ones at hone but is longer, and the balls are still bigger. We win (of course) though I actually play rubbish, and I retake my seat.

A little while later the chap from the bar comes round asking if anyone wants to play killer, for a free “bucket” which is a gravy jug sized, err, jug, of cocktail. I’m not a huge fan of killer normally but I thought I’d have a go, and about 45 minutes later I’m drinking my free cocktail. I rock. A further two rounds of killer ensue, and whilst the other group leader Matt wins the second (with me in the last 3) I clinch the last too. No prizes after the first game though, so sussed.

Overall the night is a good one, a great dinner with the lovely Mr Rarn and a few games of pool after. As the night ends we climb in to our tuk tuks which have been waiting for us for a couple of hours, and head to bed.