Posing in Phnom Penh

The venerable Brian with one of the many Buddha images in the grounds of the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh.

Dodging the terrifying traffic to cross the road in Phnom Penh is the closest I've come to being stressed in the last four months. The manager at our guest house gave me the following advice: "step out confidently into the traffic and don't falter, the motorcycles will weave round you. Don't look behind you; it's up to them not to hit you. Don't step in front of the Landcruisers with tinted windows - they are driven by crimelords and they will run you down". Imagine trying that in Picadilly Circus.




Hand-weaving beautiful silk cloth is a traditional art in Cambodia, and the quality is superb. Several NGOs (non governmental organisations) have helped single mothers by harnessing their weaving talents and marketing their exquisite wares, ensuring they have a regular income to support their families.

What's the story, Morning Glory? Morning Glory is a spinach-like vegetable which is grown in the flood plains around Phnom Penh after the rainy season. It appears on most menus, and is delicious steamed or fried. Every meal we ate in Phnom Penh was delicious; most Khmer dishes inlude flavourings such as ginger, tamarind, coconut, mint, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, and a new ingredient to us was shredded banana blossom - yummy.

This block of flats may not look much, but it's more of a home than many of the shanties in this city. Although Phnom Penh, with its old colonial buildings, wide avenues, up-market souvenir shops, and low-rise attractive skyscape, is a pleasant place for a tourist to while away a few days, grinding poverty and human suffering are always in evidence. It's impossible to walk around without being approached by a beggar; man, woman or child. Many of these beggars are disabled - 1 in every 250 people in Cambodia is an amputee largely as a result of landmines - and it's very hard not to feel desperately sorry for them as you put your hand in your pocket for a few riels.

Drawing attention to the usual huge gap between rich and poor in the world's developing countries, here is a picture of one of the lovely buildings in the Royal Palace complex. Next door is the Silver Pagoda, so-called because it has a floor of solid silver tiles. Unfortunately some of the tiles are the worse for wear, and a donation box is prominently displayed by the door with a sign asking visitors to give generously to help with the restoration. (That's another point - the only time signs in South East Asia are in English is when they are asking for money.)

Anyway, it was a tough decision - a couple of dollars for a man with no arms so his family could eat that day, or a few bob to help the king maintain his palace?

The Khmers (ethnic Cambodians) have suffered horribly over the last fifty years as a result of civil war, political corruption, and the unspeakably wicked regime of the Khmer Rouge under the evil Pol Pot. The photo shows the monument at the Killing Fields just outside the city, where mass executions and burial took place after the innocent citizens of Cambodia were systematically rounded up and tortured between 1975-79. It's unsettling to think that while I was busying myself expecting my first child (little Joseph, aaah!) in rural England, in another corner of the world whole families were being driven from their homes in the cities and towns of Cambodia to die from starvation, disease, malnutrition or the brutality of the Khmer Rouge soldiers.

Brian giving the goats a helping hand to reach the leaves on the lower branches, still at the Killing Fields, which, together with the Genocide Museum, remain open to the public in memory of the ordinary citizens who died so horribly at the hands of their own people.