Day 157. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Beyond belief.

Spent the day at a couple of the capital's major museums.

The first, Tuol Sleng, occupies the buildings of the former S21 Security prison. A notorious centre of detention where between 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 unfortunates were held before being taken to the Choeung Ek killing fields on the edge of town.

Everything is pretty much as Pol Pot's henchmen left it: the crudely built holding cells, the disgusting torture paraphernalia and the various batons and clubs used to make sure no-one stepped out of line.

High walls, barbed wire and the sheer number of guards ensured there were no escapes, but as an extra security measure the Khmer Rouge kept detailed photographic records of all the detainees.

And it's these mugshots that form the most harrowing of all the exhibits. Countless rows of poor, frightened souls stare out from display cabinets in the very rooms where they spent the last wretched days of their lives.

It's utterly depressing, and one of the saddest experiences either of us will ever have. The shocking thing is, this was by no means the largest of the detention centres, conservative estimates putting the death toll from that insane period of Cambodia's history at somewhere close to 2 million.

It was with heavy hearts then that we made our way to the National museum in the centre of town. A stunning collection of Khmer and Buddhist artefact's housed in four spacious galleries and a gorgeous open air courtyard.

Normally we'd have loved it, but not today, too much ugliness and brutality still fresh in our minds.