by the way i have lost my camera lead so no more pics til i get home im afraid!!

i am currently in in siem reap in cambodia and having the most amazing time!! arrived in bangkok and met ed, it was so nice to stay in a good hotel, and it even had a bath, heaven!! i liked bangkok but its very busy and i was looking forward to getting to the coast. went to visit the grand palace and various temples which was really impressive, the buildings are so ornate. had a really good relaxed couple of weeks on ko samui with ed where we were quite indulgent and lazed by the beach and pool lots!! the first day that we got there it was the full moon party so we got a boat over, i think its over-rated thouh! the beaches are just beautiful and we were really lucky with the weather as well, its not peak season but we had lots of good sunshine, the sea is perfect and warm! was sad to be alone again and saying goodbye to ed, but i spent a couple more days on ko samui and then went to khao sok national park, which is a beautiful and very atmospheric. the 'town' that borders the park is very small and quiet and i got a bamboo hut with a balcony and amazing mountain views. the humidity was difficult to get used to and it rained quite a lot the couple of days that i was there, but it is a beautiful, peaceful place. leaving khao sok i got the overnight bus to bangkok then, then managed to get on another to siem reap, finally arriving at 9, 32 hours after i set out i was tired and really in need of a shower because of the heat! from the border i took another bus to siem reap which is about 150 km away but the roads arent great, and this is the rainy season!! looking out from the bus the feilds and rice paddies had ust been washed out. ended up staying in a hotel with 2 girls and 3 guys that i met on the bus, and we spent the next 3 days exploring the temples of angkor wat which were just incredible and huge, the main temples are around siem reap but they are dotted all over the country. the first day was spent in angkor wat itself which was built as a temple dedicated to the god vishnu for for King Suryavarman II, but it is now a buddist temple. as we came up to ankor wat (by tuk tuk of course!) it was breath taking, and taking a closer look was even better, the stone work is very well preserved and restored being as its from the 12th century. the nex day was spent exploring angkor thom which was the last capital city of the khmer empire and of course part of tomb raider was filmed there! we went to watch the sunset over angkor from one of the taller temples. it was a bit of a scramble to get up there as its very steep and the steps are too small to fit even a childs foot on, once we got up there it was quite cloudy so we posed for silly pictures instead (jeremy one of the guys i met is a photographer), and we had some chinese and japanese tourists get in them as well! we relaxed with a beer before making our way, very slowly and most unelegantly, down. the 3rd day we spent going around some of the smaller temples and went back and relaxed in a quiet part of angkor wat until it was dark. that night we went out and drank copious amounts before ending up at a very strange khmer club......

the next day 6 became 5 as colin was headng back to bangkok where he lives, and after our busy 3 days we had a relaxing one! i went for a blind massage which was amazing! the following day liz and sally went to Phnom Phen and Jeremy, bastian and i stayed, and had an epic tuk tuk journey to the temples of Beng Mealea and banta srey (they may be spelt wrong!) first we went to BM which was just amazing, definitely my favourite. it has been completely left to be over run by nature and the trees grow all through the ruins, also in the other temples all the stones that have come away have been neatly stacked in a corner where as here you had to scamble all over them to climb through small openings. some of the children there come and take you around and through the buildings over the routes that are safe and you just give them a couple of dollars. opposite Beng Mealea there is an orphanage that we went to visit, there are 16 children that live there full time and over 40 that are very poor and come for an education. the children were shy at first but once we got out the cookies they soon warmed, and they loved having their picture taken, seeng themselves on a digital camera is very much a novelty for them and they loved it. we spent some time there playing with them and i had a good chat to Marli, a woman from australia who lives and voluteers there, and im now going to be doing some fundraising in the UK for it so you wll all be hearing much more! the children were really insperational, but it was hard not to be really saddened by it. Cambodia is a country that has really affected me and Siem Reap is a very strange place. its completey geared for tourists but 3 minutes from the town you have people living in huts with no electricity or running water. the years of civil war, the khmer rouge and its aftermath have all taken its toll, the health care system is crap and very corrupt. malaria, dengue fever, TB, HIV is rampant, 50% of the population is under 16!! the list goes on, this is a country still very much in need of help. and yet the Khmer people are amazing, smiles that will lift your hearts and stories that will send it crashing. our tuk tuk driver that day had lost a leg to a landmine, another huge problem, and they are still all over the country. even for the children with parents, there are very real problems with addictons and pychitric disorders (i think there are smething like only 20 or so pychiatrists in the country - and thats only in the cities) as many of these poor people are still scarred by the things that thay have seen, as there has been no justice and very little help. sorry to go but im preparing you for the onslaught when i get home - i feel very passionatly about this country. having said all of that things are going in the right direction, and the khmers infectious enthusiasm means that you dont dwell on it for long. every time you go somewhere chldren are running down the road waving and giggling and exclaiming to eachother when they get a response, and you should see their faces when you give them a pen! yes at the temples a lot of them are trying to sell you things, but what else can they do? i made a habit of carrying around pens and paper and they just loved it. can you imagine children in the western world squealing with excitment because they have been given a biro? all they want to do is learn. the adults are so lovely as well, despite the things that many have seen they are still warm, open people wanting to help where they can and talking to us all the time even though we do not understand eachother!

so with a some what heavy heart we left the orphanage and made our way the Banta Srey, on the way there we listened to jeremys ipod through some speakers and the people sat outside their huts were laughing wondering where the music was coming from! was quite surreal driving through rural cambodia on a tuk tuk listeneing to madonna (not my choice but jeremy and bastian have quite a thing for the evita soundtrack......). arriving at BS we were all a little cheered up and enjoyed the temple, which is the most ornate in cambodia, the carvng is incredible and excellently preserved.

the next day we were supposed to be going to Phnom Phen but decided to stay for a concert in SR called Beatocello. its a free concert performed by Dr Beat Richner, who has opened 5 hospitals in cambodia, and relies mostly on donations. the concert consists of him playing Bach on the Cello and talking about the Kantha Bopha hospitals, which treat 85% of cambodias children!! 85%!! can you imagaine the infant mortatlity rate without them? it would be high enough to be considered a passive genocide. it is already very high, some where around 10 in 100. i think it was about 5% that was funded by the cambodian govenment, and this is given direct to the hosptal, not to the health sector, because it is so corrupt. Bastian is a Dr so found it particularly interesting and we all gave generously to this wonderful cause.

the next day we headed to Phnom Phen, arriving mid afternoon and went straight the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, the sight is Security Prison 21 (S21) and itsvery haunting. the cells still contain the beds and torture instruments, as well as blood that they cannot get out of the walls and floors. the Khmer rouge were meticulous about recording who came into (none bar 7 people came out from this camp) the prison, and photographed each one and some of these photos are displayed. the faces of the people will stay with me forever, scared, trying not to cry, sat in a chair with a screwdriver device in the back of their head so that they sit properly. men, women, old people, children, babies. no-one was spared. i feel great anger that the Khmer Rouge have still not been brought to justice so i can only imagine how the khmer people feel. we went for a beer after to cheer ourselves up but i know that it will stay with me for a very long time. the next day we went to the killing feilds (fun fun fun!!). when we arrived we were greeted by the monument that is pretty much a tower full of skulls that have been found there. it literally is just a feild, with clothes still embedded in the earth underneath our feet, and the killing tree which the khmer rouge used to beat children to death against, another tree that held a loud speaker which played music to drown out the sound of gun shots, people being beaten around the head with hoes (bullets were considered a waste) and the screams. next we went to the national musem which was abit of light relief, its a beautiful terracota building that holds lots of treasures from angkor.

the following day we all headed to Kampot which is on the coast. the main reason that we went was because we wanted to go to bokor hill station. it is the empty buildings that was once a resort for rich khmers in bokor national park, it was abandoned and the khmer rouge hid here when they were forced out of the cities in 1979, you can see the bullet holes. we drove in a 4x4 there and it took about 3 hours of very bumpy track, but amazing scenery and the hope of seeing a elephant or tiger that live here! the hill station is very eery.... its actually cold as you are at such an altitude and the fog blow across the hill and we were the only ones there apart from some military and rangers. it has just been bought for redevelopment so i was really glad to have seen it. but like everything else it has not been bought by a khmer person (angkor wat is owned by a japanese company i believe- the same company that has bought bokor). after lunch we hiked to beautiful waterfall and had a swim! on the way back we got stuck in the rain, it was an open back pick up so we were all soaked by the time we got back. Kampot is a lovely little town (affluent by cambodian standards) and very quiet, leaving the hostel after dark it felt like the middle of the night with the lack of people and steet lights.

the following day we packed our bits and headed to rabbit island, with a woman called nicola who we had met the previous day. we got a long boat over and arrived at the closet thig to paradise i have seen. there were 2 guesthouses that were bamboo shacks with a mattress and a mosquito net, and an outside toilet and bucket shower. the owners had a menu of fresh fish and seafood and chicken. they have cows, goats and chickens and everynow and then you can here them be slaughtered, it is so incredibly basic there. 4 hours of electricity a night powered by a generator and every day we would see them come back from the mainland with suplies and ice to keep things cool! the island is small and apart from out beach area it is all jungle, and we were the only ones there! that night nicola and i went to go to bed an i saw the biggest spider i have ever seen out the corner of my eye in the mosquito net. now im not scared of spiders but this was huge,black and white and looked just terrifying! i went running down to get one of father of the family and he was our knight in shining armour! i spent 3 nights on the island and it was heaven, the beach is gorgeous and the sea is green and clear. reading, drinking coconuts, eating fresh fish and a few beers in the evening. and the most amazing sunsets! one of my best moments ever has to be floating out in the completely calm sea in a rubber ring and watching the sunset. there were some wispy black clouds that looked like smoke from the fire of the sun, so beautiful, that will forever be my happy place :) again rabbit island has been bought for developement so i have been very lucky to get there before it changes, and i can see cambodia is on the edge of changing dramatically in terms of tourism. again its not a khmer person who has bought it but increased tourism will be a good thing for cambodia.