Battambang, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville

Once we had got over the bus and van journey, we had a great time in Battambang. We did a Cambodian cooking course, which involved us going to the market to buy the food and then cooking it. The market was really interesting. The fish were live and bashed over the head in front of you and I saw a woman selling live, but skinned frogs!! There were also selections of honey roasted insects!! Luckily for us, our cooking course stuck to chicken, beef and fish. It was great fun, although Paul nearly chopped his finger off!!

That afternoon, we went for a bit of a tour of the surrounding countryside, which was so beautiful. Cambodia is really flat and the countryside goes on for miles. We stopped to visit a temple and some caves where the Khmer Rouge killed local people during the massacres here. The temple was beautiful and serence, but the caves felt so awful and sad. On the way back, we rode on the bamaboo train - it's basically a bamboo platform, powered by a motorbike engine on some very rickety train tracks - great fun.

After Battambang, we went to Phnom Penh. Here, we met up with Paul's friend Ben and some Canadian girls he knows. It was really nice to spend time with other people! We spent a day learning about the Khmer Rouge and the genocide they carried out in the 1970s. We went to a memorial in some of the killing fields and then to Tuol Sleng, which was a prison where people were tortured before being sent to the the killing fields. We learnt a lot about the brutal ways in which people were killed. It was really hard to get your head around why and how something like that could happen. It is really wierd to think that everyone here over the age of 30 lived through it. Our driver told us that he does not know any family that did not lose people to the Khmer Rouge. What is amazing is that the Cambodian people we have met have seemed so friendly and welcoming and lovely. Cambodia seems to have already come an awfully long way in a very short time and people have got on with their lives. It seems incredible that people can go on after something so terrible.

After Phnom Penh, we went to Sihanoukville, met up with BEn, again, and spent a couple of days on the beach, which was really nice. Happy Hour beers were 25p, so we had a really good time. No more blue cocktails for me, though! Right now, we are back in Phnom Penh and will be heading to Vietnam tomorrow. We have really loved Cambodia. We spent 3 great days at Angkor and have loved the countryside, the beaches and the people. Time for Vietman, though!