Hello all!

My last entry ended with me on route to Cambodia, I'm pleased to say I made it. Fresh from my Vietnam War education I thought I would continue down the pain and suffering route and visit the killing fields and S21, an old school turned prison/torture/interrogation centre. Needless to say I was mortified, Pol Pot was a really really bad person. S21 had mugshots of many of the victims and also of the torturing in progress, the killing fields had stray bones sticking out of the path, mass graves, the victims old clothes and a memorial that was a big glass monument filled with skulls. I left sweating on a huge scale but also with chills, a very odd sensation.

After seeing such atrocities I was in desperate need of somewhere cool calm and collected to rediscover that the world wasn't s***, I therefore headed on to Kampot, a hippy town that got lost in time. My hostel looked right out onto the riverfront and provided me with some much needed r&r to top up my health levels....at this point I hadn't drank excessively for 3 whole days and was starting to feel like a real person again.

My mini-sabbatical from alcohol did however end abruptly on arrival at my next destination, sihanouksvelle. A small beach town renowned for it's parties. I was keen for a bit of beach time but the rain started literally as my foot touched the sand (got spectacularly caught in the rain) and hadn't stopped by the time I left. This left me with limited daytime activities so I decided to abuse the cinema. Watching The Hangover 2 in a not so soberly state is something I would recommend to anyone! A moto-taxi in torrential rain, on flooded roads, by a crazy coke dealing driver who refused to put his feet anywhere near the bike, preferring a spread-eagled approach is also more fun than I can tell you.

The night time activities saw me descend into a world of mischief, whoever decided to put a swimming pool in a nightclub was an evil genius. I won't go into detail of my actions as it may bring judgement from loved ones.....oh ok then, maybe just a cheeky little incite.

The night of the full moon brought about the introduction of glow paint, seemingly a tradition in South East Asia.....I may have got a tad overexcited, the result being a good 70% of my body painted red. This seemed like a brilliant idea at the time (and I still maintain it was) but it did have consequences. I was stained orange for at least the next 48 hours....the trip down to the beach the next day involved every single person stopping everything they were doing to laugh, point and even take photos, it was very funny and I don't regret my actions, if you would like to see the extent of the stained-ness I uploaded a picture.

Other drunken activities were on the same level of relative subdued-ness, there was the standard dancing on bars, falling out of my bunk (a good 6-7 feet), throwing Ashleigh's room key in the pool, watching some truly spectacular in-club lesbian action and cough cough, me setting my testicles on fire for a free t-shirt, cough. Nothing really worth dwelling on or explaining in any more detail......apart from the lesbians.

At this point I felt it was probably best for me to crawl out of the disgraceful hole I had dug for myself and move on, another emotional fair well and I was on to Siem Reap.

Here I partook in some serious temple time. I checked out Angkor Wat, the eighth wonder of the world, and the surrounding temples. I'm sure it will upset everyone remotely interested in the culture and history of it all but my favourite was the one used in Tomb Raider! This may have been because the temples were intertwined with huge trees (awesome!) or it may have been because I got lost there, sunk a good 8 inches into an unused mud track and had to stealth my way through the restoration zone and no entry areas to make it back to the tourist area. Jack Bauer would have been proud of me.

But on a serious note they were all very cool, I'm pretty sure they bribed the aliens to take a break from making the pyramids to lend a hand. One was a tenth century 50m tall structure that you needed fairly expert rock climbing skills to look around, the etchings and detail in all of them though was ridiculous.

It was at this point that I felt like I was a bit too much like a sophisticated proper traveller interested in culture and history and stuff that I needed to do something a little closer to my maturity level..........

As you all know from previous posts I am an animal lover and wouldn't dream of eating dog or anything like that. So after a particularly heavy night out in which I met two lads, Pie and Harry, from Horsforth who live literally 2 minutes down road from me. We started worrying about starving crocodiles. By pure coinkeydink-ish we heard of a crocodile farm near by. Not wanting the crocodiles to go hungry we felt it was our duty to visit these crocodiles and help them in anyway we could. After consulting the croc menu we decided to treat them to a kilogram of fish and one live duck....now I know I am probably going to hell for finding it as funny as I did (the duck bounced an impressive height off the floor after initial contact with ground) but I am convincing myself that I fed a croc rather than murdered a duck.

I then lowered my maturity levels still further thanks to Andrews menacing list by putting a nice and innocent girl, called Lucy ,through the entire 2 girls 1 cup video. Hilarious but cruel, for everyone who hasn't heard/seen the video, I advise you to stay away from it!

An emotional reunion with Dale and Cai who had finally caught up with me saw the team back together with a new addition to the team, Pavon, a dude from Boston who is an absolute hero and border line sexual deviant. Wolfpack complete! We booked a night bus that was leaving at 2am so we thought we would do the sensible thing and have a mini night, several buckets later, and a fair few absinthe-bombs just for good measure and we were off to Bangkok!

I feel that the antics of Thailand should follow in the next blog but believe me they are large. Closer to The Hangover 2 (minus the ladyboy love) than you will believe!

I apologise for being such a bad person, I hope in time all will be forgiven. (I did have a minutes silence to commemorate Brian the duck)

Still going strong and loving every minute (apart from the hungover bloody border crossings!) any fellow travellers who happen to come across this, thank you for participating in this crazy ride and making it what it is!

Hope this blog finds you well and you enjoyed the read!

Luke. X