After the poverty we saw en route to Siem Reap we were massively surprised by the town itself - luxurious hotels, stylish bars and tasteful restaurants lined the streets!

We hired a great tuk-tuk driver (Dabid or Dave as Mark called him) for 3 days to take us around the temples. The temples didn't disappoint... Ta Prohm (the Tomb Raider temple with overgrown roots) was stunning and Kim was convined she was Lara Croft for a while there! Watching sunrise at Angkor Wat was also amazing as was exploring the more remote, deserted and overgrown temples in the middle of the forest. However walking round the temples was unbearably hot - we have never sweated so much...we literally had waterfalls cascading off our chins! There is also more wildlife here than anywhere else we've been....lizards, huge multi-coloured butterflys, giant millipedes and our first real viewing of big hand-sized spiders (though they were spindly legged ones not tarantulas thankfully).

The only thing that was really upsetting was the hundreds of street kids that beseiged you going in and out of the temples to buy books, scarves, flutes, postcards and the like. Each child could count to ten in about 20 languages, knew Britains prime ministers back to Callahan and the population of the country (i.e. they knew more than us!) Kim tried to catch one girl out asking her to count in swedish...she thought for a moment and then did it perfectly! We made one girl cry buying a paper fish from her friend and not her and felt so bad we bought one from her as well!!!

Siem Reap is a small town and we bumped repeatedly into Kate (who we originally met in Livingstone, Zambia and then again in Bangkok) and a couple of people who had shared the stresses of dealing with the taxi mafia at the border...it was nice to catch up and have a beer! Mark was also delighted to find a sports bar showing football... which turned out to be owned by a guy our age from Milton Keynes!