Goodnight Moses

I see Charlton Heston is dead. Maybe now we can take the gun from his cold, dead, hands. As he so memorably put it after the Columbine massacre.

Plenty of guns here in Cambodia too, although you don't see them. And they don't justify them with an anachronistic read of something written 250 years ago - more to do with all the wars and things. It's hard to imagine that peace broke out less than twenty years ago and that the UN only handed over the reins in 1993. Unlike Laos and Vietnam (but a lot like Thailand) Cambodia is now a fully functioning, nepotistic, corrupt democracy. In Phnom Penh you can see the new elite, the untouchables, with their minders and cars without number plates.

So far, so Bangkok (for more on where Thailand's gone then check this out - I was on a bus on the same street a few weeks ago....)

And like Thailand ten years ago, it's a land where tourists can do anything. (Including, apparently, machine-gunning cows - though I must be staying in the wrong hostels as I've not seen this yet.)

But if you look past the bad bits, or just choose not to look at them, then Cambodia's a pretty amazing place. Incredible ruins, lively cities, genuine people, great food. I've spent three days at the Angkor temples and after Latin America was determined not to like them. But they're incredible - like nothing else that I've ever seen. Kind of Transformers meets brick spaceships. Today I spent ten hours on a boat down a muddy river and enjoyed all but hours nine and ten.

So it'll be a shame to leave in a few days. But I have to. I now have less than one month to go on my little jolly and so it's time to get on to my last stop, India. All I need now is a visa...