It's been 6 days since my last confession and plenty of stuff has happened. first stop after Phnom Penn was a place called siem reap, famous for the temples (all around 1,000 years old), Pretty impressive really. tomb raider was filmed there (if you're a fan of Angelina jolie then you'll know the film). Pretty nice city realy, the only down side is the amount of people begging, it's not so much the beggers but why they have to beg. It seems that this area was heavily planted with landmines by the Khamer rouge (they thought that by maiming as many people as they could they would add pressure to the then government, bloody mad) as such i'd say 10% of the population of siem reap have some appendage missing (mainly hands and legs). in 2003 752 people were victims of landmines, 43 women, 300 kids and the rest men, so many kids get injured begause they don't know that they are playing with explosives. it can get very depressing saying no to all these people (it is reccomended not to give money to beggars as it breeds dependance). The city itself is really nice (well really western), loads of bars and resteraunts and not too badly priced. After a few days you kind of feel that you want to give something back to the comunity in order to help, so me and Devlin went and gave blood (mainly for the free T-shirt and biscuits), this made me feel good for all of 5 minutes and then i say a young lad about max's age with a leg missing, really sad. from Siem reap we took the boat to Battambang it cost $11 each (which is quite expensive) but we heard that the views were amazing, we didn't factor in the fact that it's dry season so there's no water. we spent about 4 hours on the boat going over the lake then just as the views got beautifyl (down the narrow winding rivers) we had to get off and do the rest of the journey on something the Aussies call a "ute" (i would call it petrifying). Basically it was like a flat bed pickup truck that 16 of us squeezed into (more like onto as there was no roof), with our backpacks, plus a mazzive coffin shaped box (i was actually told it had a body in it when i triet to take a look inside), this was used as a seat. As i am british (and a bit of a prat) ithought it woul dbe polite to let everyone get in first, which meant i was left perching on the roof with just my left leg for support (horrible experience). We were on this thing for about 2.5 hours down the worst roads imaginable, the truck broke down (the tyre disintigrated), devlin got smacked in the shoulder by a thorny bush (which cut her) then bitten by red ants. It was definately an experience (followed by 3 beers in the hotel). I'm glad it's over but it's definately a talking point. Anyway, i'll stop ranting now and tell you that we're off out on the beer tonight then off to Phnom Phen tomorrow, then to the beach for a week or so. Can't wait. update you soon. matt and nic