We travelled on into Cambodia, crossing miles and miles of Padi fields on dirt tracks. (Very hot here too, and MILLIONS of Mozzies! Saw my second Rat,and it was hitching a ride on the back of a cockroach..yes, THAT big!)

At certain points the road would be flooded and the bus would literally have to leave the track and drive in the fields! At one point there were children swimming in the water beside the tracks and as the bus passed through the flooded part it created waves for them. They screamed with delight as they splashed about and waved in at us! God it was great! The landscape was so spectacular,lush and green.

We are now in a place called Siem Reap,quite a large town and a base for travelling to see the famous Angkor Wat (11th century), which we will do tomorrow and for the next three days in fact, as the whole compound is over 1,000 sq kilometres. Seemingly since about the late 1800's there has been a massive conservation effort for this area, to reclaim the magnificent buildings that have been claimed by the jungle. One of which it is claimed, is the most complex architectural creation ever developed by a human mind.

We will learn more..

We had heard that once we were into Cambodia the roads would disimprove dramatically. Well try to imagine the dirt track to my place,(Sorry Fergus' place in Inchydoney) and then think about travelling on that track for about 150km in a minibus - very painful!! 

Once we crossed the border though the scenery changed completely to arces of Paddi-fields on either side of the roads, broken every now and then by small villages of wooden huts. As we drove through this amazing countryside the evening was drawing in and this seemed to be the cue for all of the kids to go swimmining in the roadside streams. It was amazing to watch as they played with out a care in the world and the excitement as they saw a bunch of westerners in a bus passing through their area. On a few ocassions we had to make our way through roads which were flooded, this threw up small waves in the water which entertained the kids no end. 

Apart form the rough ride it was a very memorable journey.

Our destination was Siem Reap, the nearest town to the famous Ankor Wat (Temple). Actually this is an area of several houndred square miles where ther are lots of temples built in deep forest. They were discovered by chance, by a French  explorer/archaeoligist around the turn of the century and have been the subject of study and restoration since. We spent two days looking around most of the major sights and they were truly amazing, however afterwards we felt we had seen all the temples that we could handle for a while.

Next stop was a town called Battambang in Western Cambodia. We took an great boat ride across the Tonle Sap lake and up the river to our destination, which took around 3 hours in the early morning, en route we passed lake villages, with houses on stilts and the only means of transport being boat, got some photos so hopefully they will come out well and will put them up on the website.

The following day we took a motorbike ride out into the surrounding countryside which was a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge about 8 years ago, we visited a cave where the KR carried out alot of executions by bludgening people to death and then throwing them down into a 40ft hole in the ground, this wasn't a pleasant experience, but a harsh reminder for us who can return to our safe homes. 

We also passed a UN truck full of men returning from a day searching for land mines, the latest estimate calculates that there are still approximately 6 million live land mines in Cambodia.

Though the UN are having alot of success the most common way the are discovered is when they are stood on. Needless to say there are a lot of men, women and children amputees in Cambodia - Very, very sad!!

From Battambang we took what is easily, to date, the worst travelling experience in the 30 years I have been alive.  In a effort to see as much of the Cambodian countryside as possible we decided to take a ride an a pickup to the capital Phnom Penh.

Picture this, seven people in the cab of a pick up, squashed like sardines for 8 hours on dirt tracks worse than those previously described. The only word I can use to describe it is HORRIBLE!!!!! As I recount the the memory my back aches - still!

Phnom Penh is a bustling, dusty capital city with lots of noise, which really didn't have an awful lot to offer, we did have a really nice meal on two of the nights we were there. 

 The following moring we went to vist the site of the infamous Killing Fields where around 17,000 people were liquidated over a period of two years. They were all burried in mass graves in what was once an orchard about ten kms outside Phnom Penh. Again this was a very sobering experience but well worth seeing.

We aim to leave Siem Reap by Thursday and travel to Pnomh Penh, the capital, then on by bus to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam.