On our last day in Siem Reap we (rather randomly) went to a crocodile farm. It was a bit overpriced and cramped but worth it as we were still upset at seeing no crocodiles on our crocodile cruise in Australia. There were hundreds of crocs at the farm, ranging from teeny weeny baby ones all the way up to scary-looking 80 year old beasts with ridiculously over the top jaw-spans. We arrived as they were feeding the baby crocs kilos and kilos of fish, which was interesting to watch. They went crazy for the food. If we'd wanted to we could have paid $10 to drop a live chicken over the railings to the monster crocs, but decided we'd feel too bad. On the way out we browsed the bags and belts made from genuine crocodile skin, pretending that we had a couple of thousand dollars to blow. I don't think the shop assistant was fooled as she followed us around the whole time we were in there. Interestingly, the farm prints 'help preserve crocodiles', or words to that effect, on all entry tickets. I wonder if all the bags and croc skin products come from animals that die of natural causes?? We saw quite a few deformed or injured crocs whilst we were there, including one without a bottom jaw, several without tails, and a couple with what looked like scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. I just wanted to take them home and look after them! Pretty sure that's illegal though.

After the farm we caught a tuk-tuk to Aqua swimming pool, where we spent several happy hours alternately cooling off in the water, sunbathing and sipping cold drinks. In the evening we caught up with a couple we met in Laos, and had dinner and a few jugs of beer together in Pub Street. Life is good ;-)

The next day we were off to Thailand via the notoriously smelly and over-crowded border crossing that is Poipet, often (accurately) described as a real 'toilet' or 'armpit' of a place by guidebook authors. We got through without being overcharged or ripped off once, but we did have to spend over an hour in a sweaty queue to get our transit visas. A plate of rice and a coke later and we were on our way to Koh Chang in a minibus being driven like a bat out of hell (Seriously, google maps reckons the drive to the pier should take 4.5 hours without traffic. We did it in 3.5...) We got onto the ferry to the island, feeling dog-tired and aching all over, and promptly witnessed one of the most magnificent sunsets I have ever seen. It looked like someone had spilt a pot of red paint across the sky. And, just like that, things felt right with the world again and it didn't matter that we'd been travelling for eleven hours or that we were both starving. It took another hour in a shared taxi to make it to our accommodation in Lonely Beach, where we ate and collapsed into bed.

We spent yesterday on the beach. It is well and truly hotting up in Thailand now that it is March. We found that the sweat was just rolling off of us as we lay there, dripping into our eyes and stubbornly beading above our lips, no matter how many times we wiped it away. This could only be prevented by spending most of our time bobbing in the sea, with just our heads poking out above the water. We were both slightly burnt that evening and had the famous 'holiday glow' (i.e. bright red foreheads/noses) as we had dinner and drinks. Koh Chang is a cool island, we like it here. Lots of bars and backpackers and Bob Marley music, and no shortage of parties on the beach. A good, relaxed vibe. It's how we imagine Koh Phangan probably was before the full moon party exploded into the consciousness of 18-30 year olds worldwide.