Hello from Cambodia!! Again another month goes by and I am rubbish with updating my blog. Mostly due to the fact I keep writing them and then losing connection at that vital moment when I hit the send button. It drives me crazy!!

I've had a great month. Work got much quieter in Lanta towards the end of our time there which is why we decided to leave earlier than planned. It did mean that Gene and I got to do some fun diving together at Hin Daeng and Hin Moung which was awesome. In our first dive we had 5 huge manta rays swimming with us - 3 stacked on top of each other and 2 weaving in and out of them the whole dive. Then in the second dive we had 4 more mantas and a big devil ray too. It was fantastic and a great goodbye for us!!

Typically we organized our leaving drinks on the morning of the event only to find out that none of the bars on the island were serving alcohol that evening because of local elections.Luckily Rohan saved the day and organized a private lock in at a bar called Barcode which is a great venue.It was a brilliant night, we had a small dinner with our closest friends, drank pear flavoured absolute vodka on the balcony then made our way to the party where everyone played guitar, sang and danced until the early hours. We got some very funny photos which no one remembers being taken!! It was so funny when we all left, Amber fell down the stairs and landed in a heap, I came running out to see if she was ok only to fall down the exact same stairs and land on her with an identical cut on my leg. Rohan then followed to see if we were ok, even held onto my hand as he came down the stairs to make sure he didn't also fall - and yep you got it fell down the stairs too landing on his back with his legs in the air!! Sebastian who we had said goodbye to 15 minutes earlier came out to find us all in pieces on the ground!! So funny…

Our little adopted kitten came back to visit us on our last night in Lanta which was very cool. She'd been shooed away by the owner of our bungalow who apparently hates cats. Anyway our thai neighbour had found her and got her to stay - I was so excited when we came home to see her waiting on the balcony. Needless to say she got spoiled rotten that night and it was very sad saying goodbye to her the next morning. She had to be held when we left because she kept following us up the road. I still miss her now L

Gene and I had a goodbye dinner together at my favourite restaurant on the island called Red Snapper - yum yum!! On the morning we left our thai neighbour was as sad as I was to say goodbye, she made sure she had our phone number so she could stay in touch (though that would make a funny conversation as we don't speak thai and we only understand each other through our eye contact and hand signals!!) and she made us promise to come back and visit later in year. She gave us a big compliment in saying we weren't like other tourists and she regarded us as thai…having met a lot of the tourists they get on Lanta that is a huge compliment.She insisted on carrying our bags and walking us to the minibus.

In Thailand they have a celebration in October/November where they let off lanterns above the ocean and make wishes on them as they set off on their journey far away. When Sayang died we bought a big lantern to say a proper goodbye to her - on our last night we took this to the beach and made our good luck wishes as we set it off across the ocean. I will miss the lifestyle of Lanta and our time in our little bungalow.

So the next day we got an overnight train to Bangkok where we spent a couple of days and nights shopping and chilling out. Then we flew to Phnom Penh where we stayed in this beautiful old colonial house within the backpacker area. As lovely as it was I am convinced it was haunted…it just had a feel about it. Plus Gene heard someone say his name really quietly as he climbed the stairs. My feelings probably weren't helped by the fact we watched 2 episodes of supernatural before going to sleep…. I had my favorite Indian meal ever in Phnom Penh - all for $1.50 too. It took them 2 hours to make but was SO worth it! On the way there Gene was approached by this freaky guy from New Zealand looking for a fight…luckily we were able to walk away after another guy pointed out the great big nazi tattoo on the guys wrist. Not nice at all.

We didn't have much time here so in the morning we got a tuk tuk to S21 which until 1975 was a local high school. However after the Khmer Rouge took control in 1975 they turned it into a place of torture to all who were captured including British and Australians nationals as well as millions of Khmer people. We watched a documentary about the history of the area and it was extremely disturbing, especially after walking around the grounds and seeing the conditions in which the prisoners lived. What used to be class rooms had been carved up into tiny little calls 2m by 1m with no natural light. Certain rooms had been kept as torture cells and when the Khmer Rouge regime ended prisoners mutilated and burned bodies were found attached to metal bed frames. The corridors and window areas were covered with barbed wire so that people could not even commit suicide which I am sure would have been preferable at times. It was an extremely sad morning.

Later that day we got a coach to Siem Riep which was totally different to how I had pictured it in my mind. There is a whole street and area dedicated to western tourists which is great for food and drinks etc but very sad that Cambodia has changed so much. Everywhere you look they are building fancy new resorts for the wealthier tourists. We did make good use of the lovely restaurants though so I can't complain too much - we enjoyed lots of Khmer food, French baguettes with cheese and ham (sheer bliss) and on our last night a big fat steak with blue cheese on top - yum!! I also had some amazing massages while I was there including two reflexology foot massages - I nearly died and went to heaven during each one. SO nice.

We did a day of walking around the temples too with a fantastic tour guide who spoke brilliant English and seemed to know absolutely everything there was to know which made for a great day. We started at Bayon which is the temple with 216 faces built into the walls - it's really amazing to see. Then we went to Ta Phrom where they filmed the one and only Tomb Raider film, the temple where the tree roots have grown through and around all of the buildings which gives it a kind of eerie feel to it. I got some amazing photos of this one, was my favourite by far.Finally we got to see the famous Angkor Wat which was amazing just in terms of size and scale. I was surprised to see how damaged it was when we arrived though and learnt that the Khmer Rouge had done as much damage as they could to it, along with many other Buddhist temples across Cambodia. It really was amazing though to see, I tried to get that classic Angkor Wat reflection picture but it didn't really work! We were all shattered by the end of the day having walked for 7 hours solid in temperatures approaching 40!

Oh my god I can't believe I forgot to mention this. The whole way to Cambodia Gene had been winding me up about tarantulas and creepy crawlies being cooked and eaten in Cambodia and snakes etc. I learnt a while ago to not believe everything he says about such things, but when we took a toilet stop on our bus journey the girls were all selling tarantulas and creepy crawlies - it was GROSS!!! I can't believe people eat these - a girl on the bus was eating spiders and had the legs hanging out her mouth as she ate them. Yuk.

Cambodia was a really good place to come and visit, the people were extremely friendly and finally they seem to be getting back onto more solid ground now and tourism appears to be booming. The visit made me really sad about everything that they have endured in such recent years yet happy for the way in which they seem to be so determined to succeed and be happy again now.I definitely want to come back to Cambodia again when we have more time and see more of the country.

Hope everyone at home is well and I will speak to you again soon. Take care xxx