Hi everyone I've been told I haven't sent an update for a while and since I have passed through 4 countries since the last time I did I guess its time. Last email I was in Borneo about to head off to Turtle Island and the orangutan reserve. My night on the island was amazing I got to see a mother come on the island and lay 150 eggs which we then replanted and released 30 babies in to the water. The best part was the next morning at 6am (not my normal time for getting up) we were allowed bk on the beach and I went for a little walk and found a new mother who had come up on to the beach late and had just finished laying her eggs it was amazing to see her in the day light and actually be able to take some photos.

The orangutans were great as well I saw about 12 of them all come to the feeding platform there were a couple of babies still holding on to their mothers and some young ones that spent the whole time fighting!

My next stop was Bangkok which was not my favorite place in the world and I was pretty happy to meet up with my tour group and have some company again on the 1st April.

The first mission for our group was to get across from Thailand to Cambodia. The journey was fine but once we got to the border we saw for the first time how corrupt things still r over here. There was money being passed over in passports and guards bein offered bribes all over the place. Our journey from the border to Siem Reap was on what our guide called a dancing road. Literally a dirt track that took us 8 hrs to drive on there were 16 of us on a bus with 13 seats and 16 huge backpacks lets just say it wasn't the most comfortable journey ever but it was a real eye opener to see the sort of places most of the Cambodians live.

Our first stop in Cambodia was siem reap home of ankor wat. The ankor wat temples are really incredible. We spent a whole day up there lookin around just a handful of all the temples in absolutely draining temperatures and as it was a religious site we had to dress respectfully which meant covered shoulders and knees I absolutely melted all day!

In Siem Reap we also visited an orphanage which was brilliant we went to the market in the afternoon and bought enough food to feed all our group and 40 kids and then went to the orphanage and cooked it and played with the children they were all so lovely and great fun even tho they didn't have very much they were all so happy and all helped out around the place sweeping and cleaning and things.

After Siem Reap we went to Kompong Cham on the Mekong river. We all hired bicycles and cycled across a bamboo bridge to an island in the middle of the Mekong where we spent the whole day high fiving all the children in the village on the island as they ran out of their houses to greet us. We watched the monks tending the fields and found out how the grow tobacco on the island and then got taken to a school to join in an English lesson. It was definitely one of the highlights of the tour even if the bumpy tracks weren't the most comfortable things to ride on!

Our next stop in Cambodia was at a home stay. It was with a lovely family who had a great house where we all slept under big pink mossy nets and ate dinner on the platform outside and then sat around the fire in hammocks till the early hours.

After the home stay we arrived in Shinoukville a gorgeous seaside town that hasn't really been hit by tourism yet. We spent 3 days lying on the beach chatting to the kids trying to sell us things and eating gorgeous seafood. We had water fight s with the kids and had them join us at lunch to finish our food it was just one of the most beautiful and relaxed places I've even been. At night we came back down to the beach and would sit on the sand and eat and drink at the beach bars with big hammocks and cushions and things spread out for you I loved it.

Our final stop in Cambodia was Phnom phen. This is the most smelly dirty and disgusting city on earth and I hated it. Our first day we did a trip to S21 (a school that was used as a prison and torture place during Poll Pots Khmer rouge regime) and the killings fields. These 2 places are something I'll never forget visiting but something I will never want to visit or relive. They were both very emotional and totally awful it's horrible to think that the people who committed some of these horrible things are still walking free in Cambodia at the moment and one guy is even a tour guide for TV companies at the killing fields! I can't believe how much Cambodia trys to prove its going forward and has changed when there is still so much corruption and such a vast poverty gap. It's such a shame in a country which ahs some of the friendliest and happiest people I have even met that their life is so hard and they still live every day with the fear of landmines and the lack of free speech.

From Cambodia we moved on to Vietnam and Ho chi mihn city or Saigon. Straight away on crossing the border you could see the change in wealth between the 2 countries. HCMC was nice and much cleaner than Cambodia. We went and visited the chu chi tunnels where the Vietnamese hid from the Americans during the war and took a trip down the Mekong visiting different villages and tasting different Mekong river products like honey and coconuts.

From HCMC we moved up the coast to Nha Trang which is a very touristy beach resort. The beaches were really nice but it felt to me a bit like the Costa del sol with these huge beach clubs which you had to hire beds off as the sand was so hot. From here we caught our first night train which was brilliant all the way up to Hoi An. It was 12 hours on the train and we had a sleeper carriage so we got to play cards and chat all night long. Sleeping wasn't easy and quite a few times I nearly fell out.

Hoi An was amazing I have never seen to many tailor shops in my life and they were all in such a beautiful old setting. I had loads of stuff tailored for me and now wish I'd got even more but the beautiful beach was calling and I'm not a very good shopper so I stopped at a suit and a few tops.

From Hoi An we took a bus ride over what is said to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. I thought it was nice but after traveling around OZ and NZ it kinda just looked like a mix between the great ocean road and south island but it was impressive. On the way we stopped off at china beach and joined in with all the fisher men in the sea in their funny little tub boat things which were really cool.

Our next stop was Hue where we had a royal banquet and got to dress up as Vietnamese royalty for the night whilst enjoying traditional food and music it was brilliant.

The next day we went and visited Wats and temples and tombs down the perfume river on a big dragon boat which was great I got to go on the back of a motorbike which mum wasn't too happy about to reach a couple of the tombs which was a little scary at times especially when u don't get given a helmet and over take trucks on blind bends (sorry mum).

From Hue we caught our final night train up to Hanoi. Hanoi is a really lively bustling city a bit too busy for me. We spent one night there and then headed off to Halong bay which is really beautiful and has hundreds of limestone islands popping up out of the water. We spent one night on a island there and then a day kayaking over to a place called monkey island where yes we got to see some monkeys.

After Halong bay we came back to Hanoi and spent a couple of days wondering around the city going to markets and museums and even visited a water puppet show which was strange but cool even tho it was all in Vietnamese so we didn't really understand what was going on.

All this time I had been with a tour group and after nearly a month together of bein constantly booked in to posh hotels and havin to go around with the group and not really bein able to explore on my own was getting a little tired. So I made up my mind to leave the group and carry on into Loas on my own. It was the best decision I have made. One of the guys on my tour group was also carrying on on his own so I wasn't totally alone but was given the freedom to look around search for guesthouses and transport on my own which I have really enjoyed. Our first task was to get from Hanoi to Loas (Vientiane). We booked ourselves onto a 24hr bus and hoped we would be able to figure out the border when we got their. The bus ride was one of the strangest and hardest trips I have ever done. It seemed more important to the bus operators to load the bus with as many boxes as possible rather than with passengers. The top of the bus was pilled high. The bottom was crammed all the shelves inside were packed. Through the night on the way to the border we were stopping literally every 500m to pick up some more boxes. People were thrown out of their seats to make way for another load. Boxes were in the aisle so getting out become a bit of an assault course it was hilarious. We left Hanoi at 6pm and arrived at the border at 5am and waited 2hrs for it to open. Getting through the border was a bit of an ordeal as no one knows how to queue but eventually us westerners managed to fight back just as well and pushed to the front and got our passports stamped and out even if I had to hand over a dollar to get mine bk from the guard. We then walked down the hill to the Loas border where luckily I already had my visa so could walk through the most buggiest room on earth quite quickly only having a to pay a small fee for some reason or another and get bk on the bus. But my friend who didn't have a visa was in there for about an hour with millions of bugs (loas seems to have the most bugs in the world and they are all huge and the most amazing colours and weirdest looking things). After bein passed bk and forth from various counters he eventually made it through and we carried on to Vientiane the capital. It took us another 8hrs on the bus eventually arriving in Vientiane at 4pm.

Right I think I'll leave it there for now as I have rambled on for long enough. I'll fill you in on my loas adventures another time. Lets just say this is definitely my favorite Asian country so far with lovely people and beautiful scenery.

Hope everyone is ok and I haven't bored u all too much.

Loads of love xxxx