This was my first Christmas away from home and family, and I certainly had a different experience!

Our volunteer house is made up of British, Dutch, German, Norwegian and Australian volunteers, and we are all used to such different traditions that compromising on them was rather hard. The mainland Europeans mostly celebrated on Christmas Eve whilst the rest of us are used to a big dinner and presents on Christmas Day. There is also such a wide price variation here that people on strict budgets (who stubbornly wouldn''t compromise for a nice Christmas meal) also had to be accomodated. We ended up going as a large group to a French restaurant on Pub Street for a Christmas Eve dinner and then some volunteers went out afterwards. However I did not fancy being hungover on Christmas Day so I went home after a couple of festive glasses of Kir Royal so as to be in tip-top shape for the following day.

Christmas Day was unlike any I've had before. We woke up, and only Fern and I from our group of friends had presents to open (thank you Mam, Heather and Ruth) so we did that and then later in the day went out for light lunch together. In the evening it was only my afternoon tea friend, Anne, and I that went out for a fancy dinner with another volunteer and we had a delicious 5 course dinner, although it wasn't really remotely Christmassy. After dinner and some champagne cocktails we met the other volunteers and then it turned into just any other Saturday night in Siem Reap. Anne and I didn't feel like going home at 3am when the volunteer house gates closed so we went to The X Bar, which according to the Lonely Planet guide is "the late-night spot in town" . When we got there it was quiet, although I guess you wouldn't really expect somewhere to be busy at 4am! We ended up staying for a couple of hours until the house gates opened again at 6am, and had an interesting time to say the least. We were sat on the terrace having a quiet drink and keeping to ourselves when a hooker came over to us and invited me to play pool with her. Although she was about 4ft high, she was pretty intimidating and despite my protests that I could not play pool, I really had no option but to cooperate with her. It is for this reason, that in the early hours of St. Stephen's Day, I was taught how to play pool by a hooker - something I can definately cross off my To-Do List in life!

All in all Christmas was a unusual experience. For me it is normally about family, food and presents, with midnight mass on Christmas Eve, church on Christmas Day, and a St. Stephen's fancy dress party the following day whilst friends and drinking waits until New Year. Here none of us have family so the emphasis was on friends, and that ultimately turned to drinking as happens with a group of post-teenagers.

New Year was another first as Fern and I decided we did not want "just another night Friday night" on Pub Street, so we did some searching around and got a really good room rate at the 5 star Royal Ankor Resort and Spa out of the city by the airport. To make the most of the day we arrived spot on at 2pm for check in and made sure that over the course of the day we used all of the facilities; sauna, jacuzzi, pool, hot shower and jacuzzi bubble bath. The hotel was putting on a gala dinner by the poolside for residents, but it was a bit out of our price range so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Fortunately our hotel room looked out over the pool so we got the whole entertainment show for free. This involved aspara dancers, kareoke and professional singers so we spent the night singing along out of our bedroom window. We cracked open a bottle of Asti and watched the fireworks from the window. It made the New Year so much more special spending it with one of my best friends, a bottle of wine and some chocolate, and not getting drunk with the masses in the city. So far the New Year has been good, starting off very positively without a hangover!