<William> Arrived in Koi Samui now, a resort island off the coast of Thailand. Journey was a long one as I've got a bit of a cold at the moment, but it's nice to be somewhere we can relax a bit. There are white sandy beaches, turquiose blue water and the sun is really hot (bit too hot for me though!). The full moon party is on in the next island in a few days time, which should be a good laugh.

Forgot to mention in previous postings about our stay in Phnom Penh. We had a really nice hotel which was on the edge of the lake (the restaurant area was on wooden stilts over the lake). It's amazing to find such a peaceful spot in the centre of a capital city. It's also funny to look aroudn the lake at night and notice hardly any electric lights, even though there are houses (or huts rather) all the way around the edge. You can even see all the stars at night because the city has no 'sodium glow' off street lights.

Whilst in Phnom Penh we visited the genocide museum (in an ex-prison) and also the Killing Fields where the mass graves of some of those killed by the Khmer Rouge are. The goverment has erected a temple at the site which has around 15 large shelves inside. Each shelf is around 3m x 3m, and has human skulls stacked three high on each shelf, all of which were recovered from the mass graves. This only gives a tiny insight into the scale of the genocide carried out under Pol Pot - between 75 & 79 the population reduced from 7 million to 4 million. It's estimated that around 2 million were killed, and another 1 million either escaped as refugees or died from famine or disease. It's truely amazing to think how someone like that came to power and how he managed to carry out so many executions (many of them pretty much random) without anyone standing up to them, but I guess people lived so much in fear of the regime that they didn't dare to speak out. An eye opening experience anyway. </William> <!--11:15 PM-->