We have had a busy few days and yesterday we said goodbye to Cambodia and hello to Thailand. It took most of the day, but luckily the border crossing was easy with no pushing and long delays. We had two pimped out people carriers to take us from the Thai border to Bangkok, it also had a good engine and we flew along.

The day before we left Cambodia we went to Angkor and spent all day travelling around the amazing temples and city ruins. We were up at 4.30am as we all wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, although the sunrise wasn't that spectacular, the building looked beautiful with the sun rising behind it. We left Angkor what and headed to a smaller temple complex, Banteay Srey, but one with beautiful stone detailing still intact. It was about 8am when we arrived there and already the sun was strong with no clouds in the sky, so with a bright blue sky the ruins looked even more amazing. Our guide was telling the stories of the carvings, about the different gods and their meanings, it was fascinating and turned out to be my favourite temple. Next we went to Pre Rup a bigger complex, but with less detailed work. There were huge steep steps to climb to the top, giving a good view of the ruins below and the surrounding countryside.

Our next stop was Ta Prohm, this temple was used in the film Tomb Raider. The complex and temples are broken up by huge ancient trees, their roots looking like lava flowing over the ruins. This was a great complex so different from the others and with huge trees towering above you, it felt like you were in another world. After all that walking it was time for lunch and then time for the rain, we knew it was coming and hoped it would cool down the blistering heat. Luckily the rain stopped just as we reached Angkor Thom, unfortunately it hadn't cooled down. We visited the terrace of the Elephants, where the King would sit during shows, then the main building of Angkor Thom, Bayon. This is a place of many faces, with the each huge tower having four sides and four faces. This was a stunning complex with lots to see and again many stories to be told. They had a stunning frieze depicting a battle scene, it was amazing in detail, but again places were worn and shiny where people had touched it. Our guide showed us a great picture opportunity with my face and the one of the tower faces, very arty. We left the complex heading through the grand city gates back to Angkor Wat and our last stop.

Angkor Wat is so well photographed you immediately had the same image come into your head, so it was great to go passed that and inside the buildings, here there were many friezes in great detail, depicting many stories and tales. There was a famous story involving gods and demons and the demons that lost out on immortality for beautiful dancing girls, these girls are depicted in a frieze and their boobs are all black and shiny, from where people have been touching them. This had us all laughing as our guide told the story of the tourist's strange ways. Unfortunately we couldn't go up to the top towers as they were being restored. As we were walking round the side, I finally managed to get a picture of the main people without any people in, a huge achievement I thought considering the amount of groups with their matching t-shirts.

It was a great day tiring, but well worth it, apparently people spend 3 days walking round all the old ruins in Angkor, but after 1 day I had seen enough and was all templed out. We finished the day with our last Cambodian curry and visited the night market again. We just bought Pete a new t-shirt as one of his had shrunk.

Luckily yesterday was not such an early start, as the last few days. When we reached the outskirts of Bangkok city we saw the mix of roof tops, the mix of architecture and with any big city around 5/6 o'clock we reached the traffic. Our hotel was rather nice, we were so excited we had robes in the room and even extra pillows, this was pure luxury to us. Tonight was out final group dinner and the official end of our trip, a scary prospect for all I think, but edged with excitement. We went to a 'British' café called Oh my cod, they served a good range of western food, but it is so expensive compared to the Thai food and often not as good, so Pete had his first Thai Green Curry which was delicious and I had chicken with black pepper and garlic (lucky Pete!!!). We headed to a few bars, but none of us were really in a drinking, partying mood, so we left about 12.30, saying goodbye to everyone, but not really taking in that we wouldn't be seeing them all tomorrow.

We are now footloose and fancy free, so today we are planning our trip through Thailand.

After a relaxing morning with breakfast in bed, we said goodbye to our luxury room with extra pillows and went on a five minute walk to our guesthouse for the next few nights. It down a nice back alley, so away from the noisy traffice, you have to take your shoes off before you enter the place, which was a good sign, hopefully it meant the room would be nice and clean. It was clean, basic but it will do. Our next stop was the intrepid office for some help and advice. I am so glad we went as a few hours later we emerged with practically our whole trip through Thailand booked and paid for, including accomodation, transfers and Pete's Padi course.

We also booked ourselves on a river cruise tomorrow and a visit to the Grand Palace. The food so far has been brilliant and we had our first Pad Thai today and I am sure we will be ordering many more of those.