Hello again everyone,

Sorry about the abruptness of the last entry, we were in a bit of a rush. but we made it out of Thailand after meeting up with our Intrepid adventure group and tour guide, Dara. He's Cambodian but speaks very good English. After a meal all together the first night we set off early the next morning on the long road to Siam Reap. Leaving Bangkok during rush hour was fun (I'm sure the traffic lights stay red for 10 minutes at some places) and then it was a short 4 hours to the Cambodian border. That was an experience! Apparently the government is very corrupt, so at the border crossing there were all sorts of things going on with people handing money along with passports over to get a visa. Ours were all sorted out easily with Dara's help, then we walked in the heat across the friendship bridge to Cambodia, all the time being hassled by little kids trying to get us to buy things. This, it turns out, is very common in Cambodia!

The 'dancing'road to our Siam Reap hotel was 100 miles. It took us about 5 hours to do. Some places weren't bad at all, but we had to stop for road works, cows, water buffalos and other vehicles, plus navigate the potholes and the dips in the road. We got to see beautiful countryside though, and the people working or playing in the villages and fields. Reaching Siem Reap you realise how built up the area is, with lots of huge hotels on the main road. Our guest house is simple but comfortable - Roy was very excited to find lots of tv channels, including one devoted to South African sport.

On our first day we decided to get up early to drive to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. So we all met at 4.30am, only to decide that since the heavens had opened and there had been thunder and lightning and rain all night, we wouldn't see the sunrise so agreed to re-schedule for the next day. Instead we went back to bed and met again at 12. Dara took us to see the floating village a short drive away, where we got onto a little boat and went up the river through gorgeous conutryside for about an hour, passing children swimming and fishermen fishing. Then all of a sudden houses appeared on stilts 10ft in the air and we had arrived at the floating village. It was amazing! After a journey round, we boarded canoes and were rowed into the flooded forest by Cambodian children, seeing the trees submerged in water, a big spider, a massive lake and were shown how the children make their living - catching fish in cages under the water. Roy even helped row for a while, though the girl on our boat seemed to think racing all the other canoes was a great idea!

After the boats, we made our way back toward the hotel, stopping at an orphanage on the way. The children performed some traditional dances for us and then we played games and had little chats with them. Very adorable, and so keen to get to know you and teach you things, though both Roy and I were rubbish at the clapping games! (Don't worry, we didn't do the Angelina/Brad thing and adopt one - no room in the backpacks.)

Seeing as we had to get up at 4 again this morning, we didn't have a late night, just staying out to hear awful kareoke before riding tuk-tuks back to the hotel. We've found Cambodia much cheaper than Thailand, as its much poorer, but they do import alot of products - I found Laughing Cow cheese in the garage shop! After not much sleep, we got up and this time headed to Angkor Wat in the dark, as the thunder storms only lasted until about 2am. it was only a short drive and it was a stunning place to see the sunrise. We took loads of pictures, only a few will be on here as it was so pretty. Then we spent the day visiting other temples with our eccentric tour guide, ending up at one in the jungle which was overgrown with trees sprouting from the ruins. It was awesome to see the temples and carvings, but the day was so hot and the tour guide rambled on so we were all exhausted so abandoned the original plan of staying for sunset also.

Wow, that was quite a long post, sorry! If you made it this far, thank you, hope we haven't bored you. Thank you for the messages - keep them coming. roy's currently uploading photos on a slow computer so they'll hopefully be on here soon.

(Mum - I was going to ring you today but discovered that the phone card doesn't work in Cambodia or Vietnam! Will try and ring from another phone soon, but just letting you know that I was trying!)

Have been trying to stay in touch with what's going on at home - just found out the football and tennis news (plus Dara our guide and one of the guys on the tour are really into english football, so it's always a talking point on our bus journeys!) and hopefully we'll find out the Muray-Nadal result soon - sounds promising!

tomorrow we leave here and head on a public bus (another early start) to Kompong Chang for one night, then on to our traditional homestay, which should be great fun. Better go now, going to help roymond with the photos.

Hope all is well with everyone! Love Jo and Roy XxX