Yummy grub (literally, a grub, plus other unusual snacks)! Not for the squeamish.

A letter from your correspondents travelling through Cambodia.

Dear Reader

Still in the singing mood of last week, we are now humming: 'Yummy yummy yummy, we've got bugs in our tummies and we feel like …'

It's true. We’ve been experimenting with 'new’ food in Phnom Penh. I wonder whether Jamie would add these to the school menu? Very nutritious! Many thousands of Cambodian children had to eat this type of food during the war. There was no rice or basic food, so they were forced for forage in the jungle, rivers, forest and their farm lands for spiders, water beetles, crickets, silk worms, frogs, snakes, rats etc. and consequently they are still widely eaten, as our photos prove. 

Anyone for crabs?

Crispy fried frogs - they were crunchy

Ants - yummy!

Helen one of our group eating a frog. Well done!

Jay our guide eating a spider - Heather and Ken had a leg each. Not bad really.

Ken looking happy before eating a small water beetle, peeled for him by Jay. There is 'flesh' in the beetles.

Ken looking rather more thoughtful after eating the water beetle

Rambutan - like a large lychee

Spiders and bats. We didn't try the bats.

A selection of bugs etc - Monty Python might call it a 'cockroach cluster'. But no cockroaches!

Large water beetles. Hmm. Didn't fancy them.

At the end of each day, we are always totally amazed at how much we have packed in - it has been brilliant finding a swimming pool at most hotels to relax in, unwind and digest all the sites and stories as we gain more insight into the culture, history and life of the Cambodian people.

Our guides have been fantastic at keeping us up to date with political issues as well as past events in their country. Both guides who took us to visit the Killing Fields and S21 prison (Tuol Sleng), were young boys during the war and so were able to relate their experiences during that dreadful time. We all gained so much from their honest stories and their knowledge. As you can imagine, the visit to the Killing Fields and S21 prison, was a moment in our trip of total horror and shock - a place I would never choose to go to, but so glad we did. It is presented honestly, without over exaggeration (it's bad enough on its own anyway) and such a place to honour the lives that were lost there and despair at the tragedy of EVIL.  It was a very 'quiet' half day - there was time for us to be alone, ponder man’s inhumanity to man, feel the essence of hope again for the Cambodian people and take away a very personal experience and try to make sense of it in our present lives. I have made many notes since being there and am hoping to express my feelings and reaction to all we saw in some poems, prose, or (given a guitar again) perhaps a song - that's my way of dealing with things that are incomprehensible. Some of us reading this will remember where we were and what we were doing during those years - '75-'79 – the years of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  I was just finishing my teacher training and then began my first teaching job in Ladbrook Grove and Ken was about to start Law at Cambridge. Strange to compare how exciting and normal our lives were then with the lives of our two guides, Ling, Jay and their families.

Two survivors of the prison S21, Chum Mey and Bou Meng, were at the site during our visit, talking to visitors and signing their books. It felt very special to see such brave survivors of that war!

One is quoted as saying, "I have forgiven them, the torturers, they were victims too ... would I have killed to save my own life"?  How amazingly honest and humbling to express these thoughts.

It seems that he is exercising the principle 'forgiveness redeems the past and unblocks the future'. 

Chum Mey, one of only two living survivors of Tuol Sleng (Prison S-21)

Our last three days in Cambodia are in Siem Reap. We have had a wonderful time visiting the 12^th century Angkor Wat, Bayon, Lady Temple (Banteay Srei) and Ta Prohm (the ‘Tomb Raider’ temple).

A small part of Angkor Wat - it's huge and impressive

We got up at 4 am to see sunrise over Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat just after sunrise

Bayon's moat with a beautiful dragon boat

The many faces of Buddha - or is it Vishnu?

The headless Buddha waiting for the headless kangaroo - if you've read our blog from Australia you'll know what we mean.

Ta Prom - the Tomb Raider temple - over grown by the jungle - nature merging with the the temple

Tomb Raiders find each other at last

And what can we see through the rectangular door?

Tomorrow we travel to Battambang and on Sunday we drive to Thailand and finish our tour in Bangkok. It will be sad to say goodbye to all our friends. Experiencing all we have during these last 17 days has brought us close and we hope we will keep in touch wherever we are in the world.

It's one more step (on our journey) for Ken and I and a big splash for us all into the pool!!

Did we jump? Were we pushed? Or is it just pretend? You will have to guess!

Love from Vietnam and Cambodia.

Heather and Ken X