Well folks

You will be pleased to know after a year, visiting a total of 15 countries around the globe, I will be returning home very shortly for a life of 9 till 5, cold weather, short days, road congestion, overpriced warm beer, crap food, poor public transport, high rental cost etc etc... in good old blighty.

So never again (.........well maybe not never again ; ) will you open your email account and receive that obligitary long inpersonal email from some far coner of the globe telling you what a wonderfle time I am having whilst your sitting there, with a pile of paperwork, dark outside, dreaming of the weekend! ; )

So for the final time I surpose id had better tell you what ive been up too, hold tight folks i can tell you cant wait! ; )

So since leaving the land of the beaches, Kangeroo's, croc's and rubish one day cricket team! that is Australia (Sorry Ozzy chum's had to get that jibe in after the last few months! ; ) Ive been in South East Asia, briefly stoping off in Bangkok, before getting out of that poluted sweat box to the west of the country near Burma (Mymar) a place called Kanchuburi on the river Kwai, hear I visited some pretty spectacular water falls, safe in the knowledge I was now hundreds of miles away from the nearest man eating croc ; ) Also whilst in this patch of the country i took a trip to the tiger temple. Thats right guys, after sucsefully surviving coming within half a meter of a 6meter Croc i felt the need to put myself through more! (anything for that pic! ; ) by getting up close and personal with half a dozen fully grown tigers with just a dog lead, and a few Thai Monks reliying on "good Karma" as safety measures! Youll be please to know,.. well i hope! ; ) that i survived the experiance complete with some excellent snaps, (That i cant take credit for taking! ; )

After another breif skip through Bangkok, and the picking up of my Cambodia Visa I headed onwards, to my 14th Country on this little old world tour. So after an arduas 17hour mini bus trip including a 3 hour wait at the Thai/Cambodia border, and a near on 10 hour road trip down possible one of the worst roads ive ever been down!, i arrived in Siep Riep. Fortunatly I met a nice couple of chaps on the trip, we all basically had the same plan, so we decided to do the trip together.

Within 5 minutes of arriving, and the discovery our accom was full, i faced up to one of fears, i.e ridding on the back of a moterbike being driven by some crazy Cambodian kid that must have been all of 14 with the rest of the guys to find accom across town, complete with a massive backpack. Fortunatly unlike my last experiance with a moterbike, I didnt go arse over tit, doing great damage to myself and my male pride!

The next day we down graded from the moterised version and hired out Mountain bike's so as to go off and discover Angkor wat. Now ive seen a few temples in my time, and normally one is much like another, yawn yawn yawn! But this place has got to be seen to be belived. Built back in 1100s then "misplaced" for some 800 odd years before being rediscoverd by some noisey frenchman. It is the biggest religious building site on earth. That being Ankor Wat, but theres hundreds of other temples too, all personalised to the top religious dude of the time, all trying to out do each other. Thoose of you that have seen the film "Tomb Raider" and took in anything more of the flick other than Angerlina Joliyn running around in tight clothing.............sorry lost my train of thought ; ) may remember the pretty spectacular set, tree's growing out of temple ruins etc etc, well that a temples here!

So after two days of riding around 70k around the place, (ive the sadle sores to prove it!; ) we headed on to Phnom Penh, Cambodias capital. Possible the stranges capital ive been too! No high rise buildings, evidience of conflicts of the past, roads filled with nut bars on moterbike, so you take your life in your own hands when you want to cross the road.

Here we got to learn a bit about the horific past of Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Khama Rouge. We vsited the Killing fields just outside Phnom Penh were 10 of thousends of Cambodian's met there gruesome end, by being shot, or in some cases, "to save bullets"beaten to death, then dumped in mass graves. There are still pieces, of bones, and clothing around the fields, along with a moument containing 800 odd human Skulls. All pretty horrific especially when you think this happend less than 30 years ago! A visit ti the S21 "prison" wasnt much fun either, a place were these people were kept and tourtured (there are still blood stains on the walls) before most of them were sent off to be killed.

Fortunalty thats all in the past now for Cambodia, well you would hope! and tourism is starting to take off a bit. Although therer are still prenty of reminders of the past. Including the fact there are still between 5 and 10 million land mines scaterd around the country, that cost 300 dollars a go to get rid of. Also for a country that has been at civil war for 30years, but now has peace there are a fair ammount of Guns and ammo floating around. So the money making Cambodians have though, "I know we will let tourist have a go at fireing them!"

Our little tuk tuk driver insisted on taking us along to one of these fireing ranges, though after what we had seen during the day, none of us really fancied having a go. Hey im a lover not a fighter! ; ) Though the "Menu" there was class, it went:

Hand Gun $10

AK47 $20

Tommy Gun $20

Grenade $30

Bazoka $100

Rocket Launcher $200

Orange Fanta $1

Coke $1

I went for a fanta, thought I could handle letting one on thoose bad boys off! ; ) 

So know after leaving the other lads to head off to Vietnam, (bit jealous of them but i surpose thats kinda rich coming from me ; ) I flew back to Bangkok, and caught my onward flight to Hong Kong, my final destination!