In the heart of Phnom Penh, overlooking the Tonlé Sap river is the complex of temples and palaces known as the Royal Citadel. Despite the horrors inflicted on the country by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge a few decades ago - and which we are soon to see in grisly detail - the Royal Citadel survived and is home once more to the revered royal family.  

Our guide in Phnom Penh is a woman called Paia who is full of information, although it’s delivered in a slightly convoluted fashion. However we have learnt over our many travels that patience is a virtue and so follow her lead as we venture around the spaciously manicured grounds. 

She meets us at 8.30am and after a short drive, we arrive at the Citadel and climb the steps for a glimpse inside the vast throne room of the ornate ceremonial hall, which we can only look at through its open doorways, the public being forbidden to enter. The king’s coronation takes place here but the entire pagoda is otherwise rarely used, unlike the nearby Temple of the Emerald Buddha, more commonly referred to as the Silver Pagoda due to its floor being made of 5000 kilos of solid silver, most of which is covered in rugs. 

The pagoda is already teeming with tourists snapping photos of the array of statues that fill the space, with the brilliant and beautiful jade Buddha in pride of place under its own raised gold pagoda. Yet outside, and running all around the walls of the complex, is a huge painting telling the legendary Hindu epic of Rama, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. 

Cambodian Buddhism is very closely aligned to its Hindu ancestry, the two great religions connected by the fact that Siddartha, the founder of Buddhism, was a Hindu prince before starting on his path to enlightenment. His belief that divinity is found within us, rather than in an external deity, transcends the vast pantheon of Hindu superstition but similarly is a guide on the spiritual journey from earthly suffering to nirvana. 

Our walk through the citadel complete, Paia and our driver take us 20kms out of the city to visit Choeung Ek, the notorious Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. En route we see the huge commercial developments from foreign investors, especially China, sitting side by side with the rural poverty that is evident outside the city. 

We talk about education and politics as we go, discussing corruption and the one party state with its post-communist system which has the same prime minister still in power after 30 years. Paia is very diplomatic in her answers and although Cambodian society is undoubtedly much freer than it was in its darkest days, there still lingers a wariness about stepping too far out of line. 

It’s a fear that has good reason. What awaits us at Choeung Ek is chilling in the extreme. Over a few small acres are hundreds of mass graves, where almost 20,000 people were quite literally hacked to death with knives, agricultural tools and bamboo implements by Pol Pot’s barbaric regime. 

Men, women, children, and even babies, slain in the cruellest, most painful manner possible by their murderers who were not allowed to show any mercy or compassion lest they too were executed. Their crimes? Being educated, speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses (so therefore deemed to be an intellectual) or having a family member who was one of the above. 

The Khmer Rouge eliminated three million people, well over a quarter of Cambodia’s population, in just three years in the late ‘70s, as they attempted to drag the country into a communist, agrarian, peasant state called the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea with horrific cruelty. The slaughter only stopped when the Vietnamese army invaded in 1979 to liberate the country and apparently there are still people found deep in Cambodia’s forests even now who have been hiding in terror for the past 40 years. 

The space is dominated by a towering memorial stupa, housing row upon row of skulls and bones, with a pathway leading past hollowed graves and terrible scenes of violence such as the Killing Tree. We watch a flickering VHS film of the horrors that happened here and then in sober silence get back into the car to return to the centre of Phnom Penh. 

The images of unimaginable suffering continue at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a truly fearful place where for years thousands of innocent people were tortured before being driven to their deaths in Choeung Ek. Ghastly cells and gallows still exist there, with paintings by the very few survivors depicting the inhuman cruelty of what took place. 

It’s hard to reconcile this vibrant city, bursting with new construction projects, massive shopping complexes, tons of traffic, huge billboards, charming people and all the hustle of major modern cities, with the images we witness of what took place here 40 years ago when the barbaric, murderous regime was dragging the country into the forced starvation of an agrarian nightmare. Now the towering concrete and steel, and pumping exhausts and pollution promise a very different future. 

We stop for lunch at Romdeng, a restaurant that provides opportunities for marginalised young people to train in a catering career. It serves traditional Cambodian cuisine such as Tarantulas with Black Pepper Sauce, Red Tree Ant, Beef & Spicy Basil Stir Fry and Pork Belly & Crispy Morning Glory Salad. 

Fortunately they also have a variety of vegetarian dishes too such as Tofu with Seaweed & Sesame and Rice Noodle Salad with Lotus Seeds and Coriander, so we’re all good - drinking lemongrass and galangal soda and pineapple, orange and turmeric juice by the little pool to cool down in the baking heat. 

Once Paia has finished her tour of the city, we get dropped off at the Central Market, where you can seemingly buy anything - diamond encrusted designer watches and high end electronics at bargain bin prices, shiny with brand names that would have a field day with copyright law if such a thing existed in Cambodia. 

We don’t stay long, walking up to Wat Phnom instead, a landmark temple in landscapes grounds on the highest point in the city, and then visit Wat Ounalom, the headquarters of Cambodian Buddhism a short distance away from the river, before heading back to our hotel for a swim. 

That evening we decide to jump in a tuk-tuk for an entertaining drive through the city to Bassac Lane, an emerging hotspot for bars and restaurants in Phnom Penh, and find the smart-looking Namaste where we have one of the most delicious Indian meals we’ve ever had, for a fraction of the price we’d pay in London. 

With it being such a balmy evening we forego a tuk-tuk back, opting to walk through the calmer streets than last night’s festivities, rounding off our last night here with a cocktail overlooking the city at the Sky Bar of the Lumiere Hotel, round the corner from our White Mansion. It’s a great way to appreciate the Pearl of Asia in its colourful, illuminated splendour... and a useful nightcap to combat the jet lag. Our beds await.