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Day7- our heads a little sore we were late to rise so rushed to get packed up and catch a minibus to the bus station, luckly they were late themselves. the bus journey was reasonably harmless only a little uncomfortable but the Cambodian karaoke music they played the whole way was torture, also the cup holder by our seats had a lovely little surprise in store for us- it was full of what looked like insect legs!!??!! it wasn't until we past through a bustling little village market we spotted a lady walking around with a tray on top of her head piled high with what looked like crispy chard cockroaches for sale by the handful, so the previous occupants of our seats must have passed the journey snacking on a tasty treat (but didn't care for the legs of course!!). We arrived in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh around 5pm. We though wed learn form our previous experiences and decided to get a tuk tuk driver to take us to a few different guest houses in 2 different areas of city so we could get a feel for the place, see which area we liked best and what had the best value for money. We luged our bags into guesthouse after guesthouse most of which involved many flight of stairs, about 2hrs after we started the hunt (not helped by the the manic traffic and our crazy tuktuk driver) we decided the best of the bunch was by far the very first one we'd seen, typical!!! dinner and an early night followed.

Day8- the main priority today was to get our Vietnamese visas sorted so at half nine we met our crazy tuktuk driver from the night before and he dropped us at the embassy. it was very easy, took five mins to fill out the form and we could collect them at half four the same day. as we were part way there already we thought we'd get our tuktuk to tale us out to the killing fields, it was def not an enjoyable place to go but very moving to see the stupa filled with skulls, bones and clothes of the dead, we wandered around the orchard where the mass graves had been, visited the museum, it was horribly sad but gave an insight into just why cambodia is so less developed compared to its neighbors. On the journey back to town we expeience our first monsoon downpour, which was an experience when traveling in an open sided tuktuk and having lorry's rush past showering us as they did. we decded to write of the rest of the day and just lounged around in our hostel, picked up the visas and had a chilled out meal and some cocktails by the riverfront in the evening.

Đay9 - not overly enamored with Phnom Penh we decide to move onto Shinoukville, cambodia's must visit beach town. the bus was only 4hours and $4 to match, it was a pleasant journey leaving the bustling city behind we entered a much more rural setting along with it a much more chilled out slow paced way of life. on the bus we met a nice guy called nick, a 30 something expat now living in Taiwan working as an editor, and agreed to meet up the following night to watch the England match. when we arrived we went straight to a hostel we spotted in out well thumbed lonely planet, it was called Monkey Republic, it turned out to be a backpacker haven, the bar and restaurant was a three floor bamboo structure, with hammocks and big round wicker chairs, the accommodation was 26 little blue 'cottages' aka wodden huts each with a small veranda outside to lounge on, a bed inside and a shower over the toliet. we fell in love with it straight away, after all the sight seeing and traveling of the past week and a bit we were ready to chill out and this seemed the perfect place, helped by the fact it was only $7 a night!!! we dumped our bags and went straight to find the beach. it was a beautiful half moon stretch of sand named Serendipity Beach lined with shacks selling cheap beer and food. we picked one at random, ordered two draught beer and plonked ourselves down on the beach in even more comfy round chairs and watched the waves lap up the beach, a few beers down we were approached by a young guy who wanted to see our shoes, it turned out he was a shoe repairer looking for work, as it happened my much loved indian sandals were falling apart and i had yet to find a pair to replace them despite much looking, after some haggling he agreed to fix them for me then and there as we watched the sun set for only a few dollars. it was amazing to watch he took out a knife and quickly to my horror hacked away at the shoes cutting large chunks of here and there. he then spent a long time chipping away at the pieces of rubber to get the right thickness and shaped. half an hour later it was glued together and my shoes were as good as new, but i guess the real test will be if they arrive back in england in one piece!!! not shortly after nick just happened to stroll by so he joined us and we had a few more beers, as darkness set in they set up a big oil drum BBQ and an ice filled cabinet dull of freshly caught fish, seafood and some meat too. we were told that for $3 we could pick what we wanted from the display and they would bbq it for us along with some potato and asian salad, an offer we couldn't refuse. Luckly we finished our food just in time as another downpour followed, we retreated a few meters back into the shack watching the wave get choppier and waited until it subsided to stumble back to our hostel.

Day 10- not much to tell woke up early and headed straight for the beach to cool of in the water and catch some rays. after a few hours it got a bit to hot and our english skin was turning a bit pink (even with lots of suncream) so we retreated to chill in the hostel read our books and grab some lunch. A few hours later we met nick and headed of to find somewhere showing the match. we stumbled across possibly the only bar in town showing it, they had a massive screen with cheap jugs of beer and free shots for every goal scored, not surprisingly it was rammed. Got chatting to some more backpackers and a merry evening followed.

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