Hello everybody i am back and trying to sort this mess of a blog out.

In the posts below you will see a lot of text (often repeated, say, three times) and some photos. Hopefully. It is now all out of order so just do your best.

Here is a post i thought i added yesterday but which seems now to have disappeared.

Cambodia ah what can I say that could possibly describe it effectively?

It is a very bittersweet country. The land is beautiful, the people are really friendly and you can sense that the country - and particularly Phnom Penh - is on the verge of big change. For most Cambodians this is the first time in their living memory that they have known peace and we are all still struggling to comprehend that fact that the vast, vast majority of people older than us have lost loved ones in horrific circumstances or even killed people themselves. And I knew there would be a lot of landmine victims here but the amount of amputees is just astounding. There is one really lively little boy here in Siem Reap who could only be about 7 and has lost an entire leg. Today we went on a fabulous bike ride out to the Land Mines Museum. This young man called Aki Ra was orphaned by the Khmer Rouge then forced to become a child soldier with them. When the Vietnamese defeated the KR he was forced to fight for them, then finally he ended up in the Cambodian army. In the 90s he worked for the UN as a de-miner, defusing many of the mines he planted himself earlier. Now he runs this great museum and an accompanying school for land mine victims (it currently has about 10 young boys there).

On top of all that, a few years ago another museum popped up in town, called the “War Museum” and run by an ex military commander. Apparently there is not room in this town for two and suddenly Aki Ra was having parts f his exhibition confiscated (apparently they later turned up at the War Musem!) and was arrested for displaying “inappropriate” items! Now he cannot charge an entrance fee so instead relies on donations. For more info see www.cambodialandminemuseum.org

Sometimes it is hard to remember that we’re in the same country we were in in Sihanoukville!

Ps a truckload (literally) of motley young boys just drove past singing. Just the usual.