Thursday 6th back to Phnom Penh

Enjoyed our last night at Les Mangiers and time for a lovely breakfast before the minibus arrived at 9.30am to take us back to Phnom Penh- around a 3 hour journey

All went to plan, except for the last mile. The driver, who spoke little English did not know exactly where the hotel we had booked was so suggested we took a Tuk tuk instead. We staged a sit in in the minibus and eventually persuaded him to take us there with the help off Nic's smart phone sat nav and our limited grasp of Cambodian for right, left and straight on! Eventually we got there, but not before the driver had shot a red light (Phnom Penh being the only place actually with lights - so he got called in my the police and was fined 5 US dollars which we duly paid. No receipt, no paperwork - so it was clear exactly whose pocket the 5 dollars (equivalent to the average daily wage) was going straight into!

We found our hotel - one which we had slightly pushed the boat out for as it was our l;ast couple of nights and Katherines birthday tomorrow plus it was located overlooking the Royal Palace  and had a roof top pool - all for £40 for room and breakfast for all of us. The children were estratic to find that the room included dressing gowns. We were delighted that the view from the roof (20 odd floors up and higher than all surrounding buildings) overlooked the Royal palace, river, Wats - so was a great way of getting orientated.

After cooling off, we all set off for Tuol Sleng Museum - which was a school taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and turned into a detention and torture prison where more than 17,000 people dies and only 7 survived. Every prisoner was photographed - so needless to say we all came out of there shell shocked.

We had a swim to try and recover. Sadly the owner of the hotel (Cambodias answer to Donald Trump) had recently died - so the lobby of the hotel was converted to a shrine, with monks and hotel staff undertaking some form of memorial services which was quite interesting

In the evening we went out to a Riverside restaurant (one which we went to previously in Phnom Penh on our last visit) and had a lovely meal including a Singapore Sling - which helped to lift our spirits after the prison experience.