We are currently in Ko Samui waiting for a bus to take us to the pier to catch a ferry to Ko Pha-Ngan so thought we'd take this opportunity to update you all on Cambodia!

As you know we started our visit to Cambodia in the capital, Phnom Penh. It was more developed than we were expecting and everyone was so friendly - so many people speak perfect English, which really surprised us. The downside of it though is that everyone can hassle you more easily; we couldn't walk down the street 50m without being asked if we wanted a tuk-tuk at least 10 times! On our first night here we met up with 2 of Sam's friends from work and had a night out. The next day we had booked a tuk-tuk for the day to take us to see the sights but unfortunately I was too ill to go (not down to alcohol if that's what you're thinking!), so Sam had to go by himself. He went to the killing fields where the Khmer Rouge took hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, including the majority of the country's educated people and relocated them to the countryside to be tortured to death or executed. They wanted a country that was one dimensional with no classes or hierachy. He also shot an AK47, which he loved! On our second day here I started to feel a bit better so we went to the Royal Palace, which was built in 1400s and was very grand and beautiful. It was so hot that day however, we had to leave quite soon after arriving and head back to the hotel for a shower!!

The next day we took a bus to Siem Reap, which was certainly an experience!! On the buses in Camobdia they play local music and tv programmes at full volume, making it impossible to read/sleep/listen to our music!! On our first full day in Siem Reap the alarm went off at 4.30am as we were off to watch the sun rise of Angkor Wat - the largest religious building in the world. The temple was amazing and it was wonderful to see the sunrise over it. We wandered around the inside and were amazed how it was built by pure man power as some of the stones were huge! We then moved onto the Bayon temple, which was more of a ruin but we were actually more impressed with it as the detailling was amazing - 216 faces were carved into the building to watch over incomers! We saw some other temples including Ta Prohm, which was were Tomb Raider was filmed. As amazing as the temples all were, 1 morning of seeing them was enough for us so we headed back to town. There wasn't too much else to do in Siem Reap so we just sat in a cafe for the afternoon reading etc.

The next day we took a bus back to Phnom Penh in order to catch our plane to Bangkok. We decided to fly in to Thailand rather than get a bus as there is trouble on the Camobdian/Thai border and we got another 30 day visa if we entered by air. We spent one night in a luxury hotel near the airport as we had to be back for our next flight at 5.30am the next morning. There was a big thunderstorm that night and we've never seen rain like it - I even managed to press my camera at the same time as a strike of lightning and it looks like it's daytime! The next morning we flew from Bangkok to Phuket and then decided to take a bus straight up to the ferry that takes you to Ko Samui, one of the islands on the East coast. It was a long couple of days and can't believe that we took 2 planes, 3 buses and a boat to get here but it was so worth it - absolute paradise!!

Will do an update on the islands once we've seen a bit more as we hear it only gets better!! Lots of love, Kirsty & Sam xxxx