Before we arrived in Cambodia, Alan our tour leader had told us that it was his favourite country in Indochina and we'd heard quite a lot about the country and its history too. Anyone who is older than 30 has a story to tell about the Khmer Rouge and the genocide as they will have been directly affected by it.

After a lovely first evening in Phnom Penh (we saw Sam-Bo the elephant walking along the street when we arrived), we set off the next day for the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (the S21 prison). Alan had warned us that it could be quite confronting, but we felt quite well equipped having spent nine days in Vietnam learning about the war and looking at the legacies it had left behind. The fact that the S21 used to be a school was a bit of a thump in the heart as soon as you go into the grounds. Our guide (who lost his father during the regime) gave us a lot of background before we entered the building; the first block has been left exactly as it was found by the Vietnamese in 1979 when they liberated the country, with beds and torture devices in the rooms. The second block had walls and walls covered in photographs of each and every person who was ever in the prison, all of whom never left. It's difficult to put into words how it feels to visit such a place, and I had to step outside and leave Simon to carry on looking around because it was just too upsetting and brought me to tears. Afterwards, we went to the Choeung Ek Memorial (also known as the Killing Fields). We learnt even more here, and incredibly they are still excavating remains after thirty years. Each year when it rains, the top surface of the ground is washed away and bits of clothing and bone appear - you have to step around them when you're walking around. There is an enormous stupa in the middle where lots of the remains are kept, and it is covered with flowers, incense and Japanese peace cranes like Hiroshima which is beautiful. Visiting both of these places, we discovered things about the regime that are too horrific to write about, but we're so glad we went.

When Joanne visited Cambodia eleven years ago, she and Steve visited Toul Sleng and Choeung Ek, and then had to get horribly drunk afterwards. Neither Simon nor I drink much, and so we found a different antidote: Ta Kuman Zoo. We took a tuktuk out there which took about an hour and a half through the countryside - a very pleasant way to travel when it's baking hot. We had a few young guys following us around, telling us all about the animals and trying to get us to buy food to feed the monkeys. We saw monkey babies, snakes, deer, boar, wild cats, crocodiles, birds, gaur, a beautiful tiger and an elephant with a prosthetic foot.

The following day, we flew from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. No sooner had we dumped our bags in our room then we were back on a bus and visiting temples. There are something like 630 temple sites in the area; we visited three of them on our first day and they were beautiful (take a look at the pics). One of the temples we visited is known as the Jungle Temple or, more recently, the Tomb Raider temple - it's mostly in ruins and has enormous trees growing through the walls. That evening we all went for dinner together at the Temple Club (in Pub Street) where we watched Apsara dancing. After dinner, the two of us walked through the night market and had a massage from 'Dr Fish' - you sit with your feet in a tank filled with cleaner fish who nibble at your feet - it was brilliant!

We were up and out of the hotel before five the next morning so that we could watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. When we got there, our guide Mr Sokham led us to the small lake in front of the temple where we sat down and had a cup of tea while we watched the sky change colour and waited for the sun to come up - it was incredibly beautiful and well worth the early start. After breakfast (it felt like lunchtime even though it was only eight o'clock) we visited the Elephant Terrace and another temple before heading back to the hotel for a bit of swimming and lunch, then a well-needed nap before heading out in the late afternoon with Alan, Gary and Sarah for a boat ride along the Tonle Sap river to see a floating village which was fab. The water level has gone down so much that at points we ran aground and the skipper had to jump out into the river and push! On the way back home, Mr Sokham invited us to his house where we had a drink relaxing in hammocks and watching the sun go down - amazing.