After a very long bus journey with crazy Khumer (Cambodian) music playing we eventually arrived in Siem Reap "the gateway to the temples". The bus station wazs 5km out of town so we had to get a tuk tuk in - didnt have anywhere to stay so we tagged along with some guys from the bus and as i was heading into Garden Villiage to check the room - Dan Karen, Harriet, Perter and Terry were in the reception - they had arrived a few days before us - what were the chaznces. We dumped our stuff in our room and then headed out for tea with them. Gill and i were knackered so after tea we headed home for some sleep.

31st oct! Halloween! todayw e had a lazy day - just pottered around town and checked out markets. We then went in search of some in town temples - as we were approaching the first one some guy came and gave us some chat - he ended up spending the rest of the day with us and we invited him out to join us and the gang for a meal and drinks that evening. We tried to find some outfits but gave up after being unsuccessful - we drew some stars and spiders etc on our face with eye liner. Dinner was good - we ate at the temple bar, just as we were finishing up people started to clap - as we looked to sthe street we saw a procession of people dressed up in amazing costumes, by standers started cheering anc clappign and the atmosphere on pub street wasz amazing. we then had a few games of killer pool which was fun - us two were the worst by far! We then headed over to the Angkor What? bar which was having a halloween themed evening. The bar was rammed - we were all on buckets and if u bourght two u got a free teeshirt so we know have teeshuirts to remind us of the night! We left the bar around 2am aswe were going to have a tiring day tomorrow.

1st nov - we were meeting james on the corner at 9am as we were going to visit Angkor Wat temples together - we stood there for ten minutes and he didnt turned up - we were not impressed. anway we grabbed a tuk tuk for the day and off we went. After buying our day passes - the first stop was Angkor Thom and the Bayon - it was such a incredible building - the ruins were awesome. Angkor Thom was s large and spread out - it had massice gates at each end you needed to go through to enter it. We even had our pics taken with a monk - and then he got his mobile out (yes monks have mobiles!) and got his monk friend to take a pic with us and him! it was so inredibly funny!

Second temple of the day was Ta Prohm - this was my favourite by far. It is the temple that Tomb raider film was filmed in. It is a ruin like most of the temples but it is special as the jungle has been allowed to take over - trees are growing out of the temple, the ruins are engulfed by tree roots. We had a few lara croft action shots -it was fun.

After lunch we headed to a small hindu temple built in 921 called Prasat Kravan - it was nice visitng a temple off the tourist map as there was us and another couple there. We then headed to Angkor Wat itself - it was such a beautiful building - very well restored. Angkor Wat is Cambodia's pride and joy - it features on their flag. All the interior walls had also be restored and maintained showing great detailed pictures and stories. It was so hard to beleive that such an amazing piece of architecture was built so long ago!

Next stop was Preah Khan, one of the largest complexes at Angkor - it had a maze of valuted corridors - it felt like you were walking forever! Again this temple was not nearly as busy as the main touristy ones. Time was now nearing 5pm so we headed to the hill Phnom Bahkeng to watch the sunset - it was a 15min climb to the top, where another temple lay so we climber that too - lots of people up there as it was obviously the best spot - the views over the countryside were amazing - you could see for miles and the sunset WOW the sky was orange it was icnredible - just before the sunset, james appeared! we arranged to meet james the next evening as we were exhausted and then got our tuk tuk home. we had tea and then an early night - in desperater need of catch up sleep from night before!

after a long lie in today (2nd nov) we just walked around the cute town of siem reap - we found some other markets.met james that evening and had dinner in such a cool restaurant called the dead fish - it was on loadsa of different levels and the staff were so cute in their little uniforms!

3rd nov - basically ionvolved same as day before - our last evening we had tea with karen and dan and then headed home to pack as next stop Bangkok - a little worried about this journey as heard some horror stories - supposed to be the worst journey we wiill do - poipet border is dodgyand lots of scam busses exist - luckily we got there in one piece - it was however the worst journey ever - the cambodian side does not have a tarmaced road so its pot hole after pot hole! sore heads and sorebums were the end result. Thai side of border was sweet - in a small luxury minibus with dvd player - we watched license to wed which is such a funny film!

very excited about our time in Thailand as so far Camb and V'nam have been great

Love to everyone xxxxxxxxxxxxxx