I feel like I have 27 kids and I'm leaving them all behind. I'm really quite sad - it's like leaving home again. Three weeks wasn't long enough, I only just feel like I'm settling in and starting to know the kids and work out what I'm doing. And some of the kids are only just getting used to me it seems and starting to talk to me. One of the girls told me all about what her homelife was like before she came to CCOLT; they're definitely better off where they are. It's tricky though, as they come from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them are "proper" orphans with no family, a lot only have one parent, some were abandoned by their parents and some just come from really poor families and attend CCOLT to get better opportunities in life. There normally seems to be an alcoholic/violent man involved somewhere as well. But, considering what they've been through, these kids are really amazing. Most of them are cheerful, polite, respectful, very hard-working and just really lovely. I'm going to miss them and I definitely won't forget them. We just had a bit of a doss-around last day. We were meant to be going on a trip but in true Cambodian style we were told at the last minute that a doctor was coming to do a check-up on all the kids so we couldn't take them anywhere. It was fun though, and the kids liked it. I got lots of pictures and letters and even some presents, including an ingenious pencil-holder made out of folded paper from my evening class Khmer helper teacher. I'm not sure how long this will last in the bottom of my pack though...

After losing my MP3 player in Mongolia, I have music again! There's a place in Phnom Penh called Boom Boom Room where you can get albums uploaded to MP3 players, so I bought one here and got loads of albums put on. I am very happy, especially as I had a seven hour bus ride yesterday. Now I have to be very careful and try not to lose this one.

I forgot to write about last Friday night. Two of the volunteers left so their project ("the Farm") put on a show for them, which we all went to to provide an audience. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting to sit through something like a primary school end of year show with children singing badly, the type which is only fun for the parents. But I was very pleasantly surprised, as the kids put on a traditional Khmer dance show which was really really good, and worthy of a professional performance of Khmer dancing in the city centre, rather than a knocked-together show in an orphanage. My favourite was the "Monkey Dance" with some very cute six year old boys bounding around like, well, monkeys. We also got food, lots of food, and pretty good it was too. It's a shame, as the kids do this every month, but rarely have an audience as it's quite a way out of the centre and nobody knows about it. One of the highlights was at the end, when it really did turn into a school disco. Flo Rider has made it to Cambodia in style and is proving very popular, they've even made up their own Macarena-esque dance to go with it. Envision 70 children in ragged clothing grooving to Flo Rider with a 6'7'' man (Rolf) dancing like your dad at a wedding next to a row of pigsties, and that is a pretty good summary of my time in Phnom Penh. Good times.

I am now in Siem Reap. First impressions were good last night, it's a very small city in comparison to Phnom Penh (which wasn't the best place to spend three weeks, other than the teaching I really didn't like it very much at all). Granted, this morning it doesn't look quite as nice as it did in the dark, but I'm enjoying a combination of relatively quiet roads and being able to walk on the pavement. The people here are very friendly as well and the tuk tuk drivers are less manic. I was starting to get very bored of hearing "tuk tuk, lady, tuk tuk!" everytime I stepped out of a building, turned a corner, or in fact just breathed. There are obviously still tuk tuks here but they sound less like chickens ("tuk tuk tuk" sounds a lot like "cluck cluck cluck" when you hear it so often, or maybe it just turns you mad).

Everyone is very friendly and helpful here. I haven't worked out yet if this is because they are genuinely friendly or just because they are better at the salesman pitch than Phnom Penhians are, but it works on me. I was met off the bus last night but a guy who worked for the bus company who offered to take me to my hotel. Going over speedbumps on a motorbike with a 15 kilo rucksack on your back is quite fun by the way, I very nearly fell off. When we got there it was full, but I'm not sure if this was because it actually was full or it was the "full, I take you someplace else" (and get a nice commission out of it) patter. Still, it's ok, I now have my own room for $3, and last night, thank heaven, I was cold and had no bedbugs so I actually got a full night's sleep. I'm quite severely sleep deprived as I've had about 3 hours sleep a night on average for the past couple of weeks. Today I am having a rest day. Last night I got offered a moto to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. I don't think so! Going to do the temples tomorrow I think. Unsure about sunrise, not only because of lack of sleep, but also because everybody goes at sunrise - I'd rather see it not at sunrise without 1000 other people.

I need to organise what I'm doing next as well. Im meant to be going to Laos which seems doable, although at first I thought I couldn't as it wasn't an option on the bus timetable, but turns out I need to get a bus somewhere and then get another bus to the border and then get a bus on the other side. Also hearing mixed information about visas - first I hear you don't need a visa as they issue at the border, then you must get one in Phnom Penh (I learnt this the day I left), then you can get one at the border town, so I'll need to sort that out. I'm sure it'll work out fine. Otherwise I can just go to Thailand next and go to Laos from there. I was planning on going to Thailand twice anyway as you can only get 15 day visas at the border now. I learnt from my Vietnam - Cambodia crossing it's better to get the visa at the border as it's half the price of getting it in Hanoi. Maybe I'll just rock up and see what happens. I also may go to Malaysia too now as I have 7 weeks before I fly to India. Or Burma.

I'm in a really cool place - it's called Dead Fish Tower. It's a restaurant where you can use the internet for free, and the food's pretty good (I'm currently eating the world's biggest sandwich) but I like it because it's one of those places that are a bit weird. It's more like a series of treehouses with wooden platforms all over the place and it goes up about five storeys. All the clocks are wrong "so you accept and are not afraid off the past" according to the menu. I may live here while I'm in Siem Reap. They also have crocodiles, ducks and a cat (the crocodiles are in their own enclosure)! And they play good music. Oddly, I'm the only person in here though, so it doesn't have a very lively atmosphere. But it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland in a weird kind of way. Hmm, perhaps I still need to catch up on my sleep.