Phnom Penh and Sihanouk Ville

We had booked a driver to drive us round the main sights in Phnom Penh, and so we got up early on the Monday to go and visit the infamous "Killing Fields", as well as other memorials to the vicitims of the regime of the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields were where many Cambodians, who were seen to be enemies of the party doctrine, were taken and executed by the Khmer Rouge. This proved pretty chilling, not least because the first memorial in the area was a tower of skulls of the vicitims killed, ranging from 5 years old upwards. After looking around, we went to a small musuem, before leaving for the next memorial, and old school turned tourture chamber during Pol Pot's rule. Known as S21, this was even more vivid, as most of the area had been left exactly as it had been after the Khmer Rouge demise in the city in 1979, with old school black boards next to leg chains and barbed wire. While all this sounds highly depressing (and to be fair some of it was) we found it really interesting as we got to get to know quite a lot of the history of the country we were in. We left there for lunch, before visiting the Imperial Palace of Cambodia and the National Musuem. While these too were impressive, by the end we had been overloaded by history, with Walmo remarking that his brain "hurt"from over use. He had a small point however, so we played a few relaxing card games, before heading back to the hostel to shower and crash for a few hours, before eating near the centre of Phnom Penh. Knowing we had an early start, we hit bed. AFTER chilling. However, with promises of a 8-15am bus, we got up early, only to be told we had to wait until 1pm for a bus to Sihanouk Ville. After waiting a while for a bus, we arrived in the South of Cambodia at 5pm, been shown our room by a guesthouse staff that we duely dubbed "Chuckles", as while we all know how funny us 3 are, she seem to find anything we said hilarious. The fact that everytime she came to our room we were topless/trouserless watching tv probably had something to do with her embarrasment. We think she loved it. Anyway, we hit the bar, where we found out beer was 62 cent. A good night ensued, and we hit the local beaches to have a look around. We all returned differing times however, Grieve and I were too busy finding fellow lads, while Wamsley had gone AWOL. The next day was unproductive until the evening, as I was the only out of bed until about 3pm. We wandered down to our local beach, "Victory Beach", sunbathed and ate, while trying to be convinced by local Cambodians to get a massage. We passed. After trying to throw Walmo in the sea, we headed back to the guesthouse, chilled then headed to the bar for a pub quiz. It must be noted that most of the questions were way before any of us were born, and while we only got 11 out of 50, the top score was 26 out of 50, with at least TWO groups coming behind us. Oh yea. Grieve got MVP for his 5 right answers, while I came second...with 2. We got help with 3 of them. Walmo got a question about HURDLES wrong, while I got an obvious HISTORY question wrong. We preceded to head out, getting some food late in the evening, before hitting a casino with a Tuk Tuk driver. We placed our huge bet on the Roulet Wheel...and won double our money. With Grieve remarking how his 10 whole dollars was the best note he had ever held, we hit bed hard. Today, got up quite early, and got a bus back to Phnom Penh, where we are now. Plans are to get a boat up the Mekong River into and up Vietnam.