Hey everyone,

Lets finish talking about Bangkok. On our last day we decided to go visit the Grand Palace and Wat Arun just across the river from it. We spent most of our time at the palace looking at the temple and the surrounding buildings that are on the palace grounds. In the temple is the Emerald Buddha, which isn't actually Emerald and is a bit small to be honest but was still good to see. The palace building is really impressive but we couldn't go inside. Outside it also has funny guards like at Buckingham Palace who have to stand straight faced whilst tourists pose next to them and do other silly things.

After the palace we made ourway to the river crossing and popped across on the ferry to Wat Arun. The site has a temple and some really tall structures that you can climb and see lots of Bangkok from. We made our way up to see the stunning views pretty easily but the coming down wasn'tas easy for Elisa. The stairs were pretty much vertical and Elisa's fear of heights kicked in but she realised she had to either go down or stay at the top forever so made her way down very slowly, backwards, so she didn;t have to look down.

After our sightseeing jauntwe caught the ferryback to Khao San, grabbed some food and got an early night before in preparation for our trip to Siem Reap.

We were in the lobby of the hotel for 6.30 but our mini van didn't arrive untill 7, annoying! The journey to the border wasn't too bad as it was just us and an older couple in a biggish mini van. We stopped at a restaurant just before the border though where we changing buses. We ended up staying there a few hours as we waited for another group to arrive. Eventually we were packed into the same size minivan but over capacity so we were practically sat on each other. At this point as well we found out that once over the border we had to wait another 2-3 hours for a bus which meantwe would arrive in Siem Reap at 8 when we were told by the guywho we booked it with, that we'd arrive at 4! We got to the border then did all the boring bits queuing up to get our passports stamped etc. We decided instead of getting the bus to get a taxi instead because we only had a few days in Siem Reao anyway and didn't want to spend valuable hours waiting for a bus. At 3.30ish we got into Siem Reap and to our hostel, which was pretty nice.

Once we'd unpacked our bags a little and a had a sit-down we checked out the market, which sold everything from clothes to sea food and then explored a little more before settling down in a cafe to have some food and a drink. I broke my Lenten promise to not drink alcohol because I found beer on the menu for $0.75, which is something ridiculous like 46p (oh well). After food we went back to hostel where we met some guys from the hostel and decided to go do a pub quiz with them. We thought we were doing pretty well but ended up coming 4th :(. I also bought a raffle ticket and won two bottles of wine! Whoop!

The next day we got some brekkie then grabbed a tuk-tuk to the temples. We did Ankgor Thom (which has a few temples), Ta Prohm (tomb raider was filmed there) and the big one Angkor Wat. They were really good to see I can't imagine how they built such amazing structures all that time ago, nearly all the surfaces have something engraved on, it's crazy. Our favourite was Ta Prohm though beacause of all the trees intertwined with the stone, it made it look that little bit more beautiful and atmospheric (Elisa also enjoyed being Lara Croft in the jungle). Angkor Wat was good though just on sheer scale, it also looks good when you look at it from the front entrance. After that we tested out the pool at the hostel, which wasn't as cold at thye one at Bangkok but still pretty cold. Didn't do that much in the evening, just chilled really in a barand listened as they did a music quiz.

Today after much deliberation we decided to go to Bang Malae, another temple, about two hours out of Siem Reap. The journey out there in a Tuk-Tuk was really nice. We saw loads of beautiful Cambodian countryside and houses on stilts. Every five mintues some kids would also shout hello at us and wave, so friendly! The temple itself was more of a ruin than the ones we'd seen the previous day but it was really cool. It's more in the jungle than the rest and because its all in ruins its fun to explore, I went off road abit scrambling on the rocks with a child-guide, which was fun. Nearly lost Elisa, I was lucky to find her because there was this JApanese guy who did the same as me and spent the rest of his time at the temple looking for his girlfriend. On the way back it rained (only a lttle bite), which was nice because it was so hot. We also saw some interesting sights on the road, highlights beingmonks on motorbikes and dead pigs strapped to the back of motorbikes with their legs sticking up in the air. Since we got back we've just been chilling really, we're back to Bangkok tomorrow pretty early.

Oh and another funy thing, one of the girls in our dorm is from Sheffield, what a cooincidence! We could tell because we heard her on skype describing something as RIGHT good.

Elisa here- Elena, india is 10 times as manic as bangkok!! its pretty normal bangkok i think, and i cant throw anythiong away i need them! i bought 2 pairs of trousers in india which are really good for the hot weather so i have bought summat! im really tempted tho to buy those tops saying 'same same...but different'' hahaa i remeber you telling me about those when you went! oh and everybody...i was sick in the middle of the street in bangkok...nice! im taking tablets still which help the nausea but not sure if they are curing anything.

thats all folks, have a good mothersday all you mothers! speak sooooon byee xx