Phnom Penh, Cambodia is where we are at the moment. It's another totally new country for us so other than what our Lonely Planet guide tells us it's hard to know what to expect. This is a place crawling with some of history's most famous events.

Entering Cambodia is an interesting process to begin with. We had to fill out the standard immigration form but we also had to fill in a visa application form as they're required before you can enter the country's borders. Firstly the form required a passport photo. We had some spares but they were locked away in our luggage that we couldn't get until we had a visa - no problem! $1 USD got around that. The next step was to stand in a large group of people and wait for the guy behind the counter to hold up your passport (which gets taken off you when you had your form in). When it gets held in the air you push your way to the front of the crowd, hand over $20 USD and are finally allowed to go through immigration and customs. It's the first time either of us has experienced anything like it but a great way to see how crappy some people's passport photos are ... mwahaha.

Unfortunately, however, a lot of the famous Cambodian events aren't nice at all so I'll get those out of the way first.

We arrived in Phnom Penh quite late in the afternoon to find that all the sleeping places near the lake were totally full so we ended up finding a nice place in the middle of town. The Tuk Tuk driver (actually they are called 'remorque moto' but the drivers all ask if you want a tuk tuk) that took us to our hotel also arranged to be available to take us around the sights the next day - sounded like a good deal so we arranged to meet him the next morning. He cost $10 USD for the whole day which is pretty good considering he waited at each sight for us to finish looking around.

First stop on our journey were the infamous 'Killing Fields' at Cheung Ek. From the moment we stepped through the gates it was almost like the air changed - I remember the same feeling when we visited the concentration camp at Dachau in 2006. The first thing you see is a massive wood, stone and glass structure that is full of ... ewww ... human skulls. I don't know how many there are but it must be many thousands. You are asked to take incense and place it at an appropriate point in order to pay your respects to the 17,000 men, women and children who were cruelly murdered here by the instigators of the Pol Pot Regime - the Khmer Rouge. It's impossible, to me at least, to understand how anyone could visit Cheung Ek and not feel a bit sick when thinking about the countless atrocities that took place under Pol Pot's rule. Most of the people that died at Cheung Ek were brought here after being incarcerated at Tuol Sleng or "S21", the school-turned-prison near the centre of Phnom Penh. 87 mass graves have been uncovered so far including one that contained 166 headless victims, along with a tree that was used to tie up children while they were bashed to death. :( While walking around we found some teeth on the ground that must have belonged to some of the victims. It didn't seem right that they were on the ground being walked over by countless tourists every day so I picked them up and placed them with some other unidentified bones that were on display. Kinda scary but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Suitably shaken by Cheung Ek and the stories of violence, murder and bloodshed that took place at Cheung Ek our driver then took us to Tuol Sleng ('Hill of the Poisonous Trees' in Khmer), a school that was converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge and named Security Prison 21 or 'S21' by Pol Pot and his gang of thugs. This is where an estimated 17,000 people were incarcerated from 1975-1979 although the real figure is unknown. We found an English-speaking guide called Tee-Vee who showed us around. It's pretty hard to describe what she told us while we were shown where prisoners were kept in cells 0.8m x 2m during rounds of unspeakable torture. One of the Khmer Rouge's favourite torture techniques was to hang prisoners upside-down by their feet until they passed out then drop them into large jars of disgustingly dirty water that is normally reserved for manure and fertiliser. Naturally this would shake the prisoner conscious again pretty quickly, at which point the whole process would be repeated until poor soul admitted they were an enemy of the Pol Pot Regime ... even if they weren't. In some ways you can understand why they would admit to this - it might actually offer a quick end to their suffering. Of course, this doesn't lessen the impact of people having their fingernails pulled out then alcohol poured into the wounds, fingers cut off or drowned to within seconds of death. The point was rammed home for us when Tee-Vee told us that when she was 10 years old she had been forced to flee on foot and walk for over a month to reach the relative safety of Vietnam. She lost her father to the Khmer Rouge too - absolutely tragic and really hard to hear someone to speak about it out loud. Later we watched the famous movie 'The Killing Fields' starring Dr. Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich and Sam Waterston - if you haven't seen it you should. The story is both touching and absorbing.

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It seems appropriate to draw a line after all that bad stuff. So ANYWAY, what else did we do? Our driver asked us if we wanted to visit a shooting range. After some deliberation we decided to go and check it out, even if it was only to see what the deal was. After driving down a dirt road and the driver signaling to someone we couldn't see, a large metal gate swung open to a small courtyard with a couple of Shady Cambodians hanging about. It was pretty evident that this shooting range wasn't exactly government-endorsed and probably highly illegal. It was also pretty obvious that they wouldn't like it very much if we looked at their 'menu' and left without paying them anything. The menu consisted of the USD costs to shoot a huge variety of weapons ranging from $15 for a Colt 45, $100 for an RPG and $120 for a hand grenade to ... wait for it ... $220 for a rocket launcher! A ROCKET LAUNCHER!! Somehow that doesn't seem like something you pick up from 7-11 while grocery shopping. And come on, what the f do you aim that thing at when you're just outside a city? Hmmm. Anyway, partly because I thought it might be interesting and partly so we could leave still breathing I chose the Colt 45 and a Russian AK47 machine gun. All I'll say is that if you've never fired a proper gun before I doubt anything can prepare you for actually firing an AK47, especially when the nearest Shady Cambodian flicks the weapon onto fully automatic. It is seriously scary and I know one thing for sure - war sucks and I ain't ever going to one. I'll happily admit that my hands had the shakes afterwards. We've got some video footage and if we can make YouTube work again I'll consider uploading it for y'all to see.

The following night we looked up our friend Monique's parents. They do volunteer work in Phnom Penh and had kindly offered to let us stay at their place for a couple of nights. It was an excellent base for checking out some more of the city and really nice to sit down in the evening and have a decent chat to people who had lived and breathed Cambodian culture for almost 4 years. As always we're very thankful to Gerald and Chris for having us to stay at their place and for helping us find cool sights to see. :)

One of the places we were pointed to was the waterfront along the banks of the Mekong River, the 11th longest river in the world. The area is really nice and not far from The Royal Palace, a stunning architectural sight that was unfortunately closed when we got there. Doh! We'd also been told about a really nice place for a drink called the FCC or Foreign Correspondent's Club so we went there and discovered that sipping Caipirovska while looking out over the Mekong river is a pretty damn good way of enjoying a warm Cambodian evening ... hehe. We're such tourists! I got into a very interesting conversation with a pro photographer from Canada about why everyone should buy Nikon cameras too - very enlightening actually!

At one section of the waterfront area is a food market where we were finally able to view the famous local delicacies. You can buy fried crickets, baby chickens, the biggest beetles I've ever seen ... and tarantulas! Even dead and crispy they don't look very nice. We bought one anyway and took some photos of it. Neither of us had the guts to take a bite though. So, now we had a tarantula with us we didn't really know what to do with it. There are a LOT of kids running about begging for money and food so we found a couple and asked if they would like the tarantula. I can't imagine a kid in Wellington looking happier if you handed him/her a candy bar. Their eyes lit up and they promptly sat down and started pulling the tarantula apart before eating the entire thing, legs and mushy body included. It was funny to see them and yet sad that people in some countries are forced to beg to stay alive. We bought a couple of bags of chips/crisps and looked for a couple more kids. A group spotted us looking at them and sprinted towards us, at which point Annie handed one of the bags to one of the kids. This started a near riot with kids pulling on our clothes, holding out their hands and following us along the street begging for more food. We ran out pretty quick but we learned a lesson - if you're going to hand out food, make sure you've got enough for everyone.

I think that's the end of this mammoth post - congratulations if you've managed to get this far. Next it's on to Siem Reap by bus so we can hit the tourist trail and the temples of Angkor - we can't wait!