Hello,

Well we have succesfully made it out of Bangkok and to the safe lands of Australia, but not before some more adventures in cambodia!

we headed away from the beach and to phnom penh and to our passports which were safe and sound where we had left them- yay!! we wont be doing that again anytime soon i can tell u! we headed straight to the river side in phnom penh, the much nicer part of town and chilled out for the evening before our visit the next day to the killing fields. We headed off the next morning in our tuk tuk to the killing fields of the khmer rouge, the second harrowing experience fo this trip. the recent history of south east asia is so strewn with unbelievable violence and human atrocities that it becomes somewhat unreal. as we walked around the relatively small area, probably 50m squared, where over 8000 people had been murdered and buried, and where bones were still emerging under the surface of the paths, it was dificult to comprehend what had really occured. it was difficult to connect with the fact that the blunt tools infront of us had been the means of extermination of so many people, that they had used palm leaves to saw of peoples heads and had killed babies by hitting them against a tree that was still stood there to this day. it was a very unpleasant morning and left us with a feeling of unease that was difficult to shake. in our attempt to do so we headed to the russian market, where apparently real designer stuff can be found (as it is all actually made in this area a little of it doesnt quite make it onto the lorries and winds its way up here!) the only problem was that it was now khmer new year and it was closed, added to this because it was khmer new year our tuk tuk driver, whom we thought we had booked for the day, said that he had to clear off to go and see his family so we wandered round the closed market for roughly 5 minutes before we concluded that, yes, it was indeed closed an we headed back to the river. we spent the afternoon chilling out and making ourselves feel better with cake in fantastic bakery that we had found and trying to organise meeting up with jack, sam and chris and with jen and bugs (new zealanders we had met in sihanoukville) which we actually managed successfully!! as it was the fist night of khmer new year we headed out for a few drinks and ended up covered in talc and joining in with the street parties, failing to remain inconspicuous- our attempt at there kind of dancing was laughable to say the least! :D we had an awesome night, but woke the next morning for a visit to the S21 prison, the place whre the khmer rouge had held and tortured those they would later take out to the killing fields. it was again a harrowing but must do thing. to see the way that a school had been transformed into a place of torture for intellectuals, the way the the gym equipment had become tools for interrogation and to see the blood stains left in some of the rooms certien left a long lasting impression of the horrific tale jsut beneath the surface of this beautiful country.

We then headed from phom penh to siem riep, happy to be leaving what now felt like a dark city with an horrifically dark past. and to our great relief siem riep was nothing like phnom penh! it was a small town with wide streets and with, well ill be honest still closed markets as the khmer newyear was taking its time in coming, and with cafes and a street called pub street- we were happy!! more than that we successfully met up with the boys again and arranged to go to the temples of angkor with them the next day. after many rearranged plans we finally settled that we would get up for the sunrise and make a day of it. so emily, sam, jack and i woke up and 4.30 met and 5 and arrived at angkor wat at 5.30. all was well, we were not entirely sure what temple we were at because none of us had our guide books with us and our tuk tuk driver, bali, didnt speak much english. added to this by 6.30 we decieded that the sun had definitely already risen and that the clouds had definitely scuppered any good shot we were going to get! but we explored anyway and took lots of photos and headed on to angkor thom. after exploring the bayon temple we headed for the temple of the leper king and promptly got lost because again none of us had our guide books or a map- we were doing well!! :D we were however having good fun and by this stage not sweating too much- a definite bonus!! by 11 we had scrambled up, and bum shuffled down the incredible steep steeps of several temples, had wandered over the ruins of others, had climbed the roots of trees which were slowly but surely crumbling some temples and we had sweated a lot!!! so we headed for lunch and then back for a rest before hitting it again for sunset. however we were again foiled by clouds and bemused by the fact that we appeared to be ontop of one of the temples for the sunset when we had figured that the point was to have the temple in the view infront of the sunset. again we waited, but this time we were definitely less hard core and gave up quicker and headed again for the sheer steps down the temple, and we headed home after what had definitely been one of the most fun days in a while!!

after our day of culture we had a week to kill in siep riep as we decided to avoid bangkok and just get there to fly out. but we were happy none the less. it was nice to stay in one place, and when the markets opened we explored them, we spent a day at a pool, got a massage and a fish foot massage- i am definitely too tickly for one of these, but as i was the only one who actually dared stick my foot in i felt good! :D we had good nights out, ate corocodile and snake and lots of amok and generally had a good week! and so at the end of the week when it came time for ems and i to leave jack and sam we were sad to do so but the appeal of not sweating so much was still definitely a massive draw!! so we headed to the southern hemisphere and autumn, a move that by this time both our stomachs were glad of also!!

i am now clean and dry in the andersons lovely house in sydney with a glass of wine in hand and excited about or week in sydney, and emilys birthday tomorrow!!! :D

hope all is well at home, do keep in touch and tell me all ur news!!! much love x x x