Hi all,

Siem Reap rocks, FACT. Although I'm not a serious temple fan the few we visited were pretty spectacular and well worth sweating and straining through the heat for. We arrived in Siem Reap and were picked up by quite possibly the lovliest tuk tuk driver in the world (Though his friends warned us he was a ladykiller!!). He spoke great English, wasn't pervy and didn't drive like a lunatic. Result! He spent the next few days being our personal chauffer around Siem Reap and ferrying us around the temple sites of Angkor Wat.

Our first day was, as always a day of chillling out and eating! We had had about 8 early starts (Pre 7am) in a row and to celebrate not having to get up till 8 the next day we decided to have a "few" beers...well, if you bought 2 big buckets of vodka you got a free t-shirt, who were we to refuse?? After a night of dancing, over-sauced chips and possibly the most expensive 5 minute tuk tuk journey in the world we woke up feeling less than enthusiastic about traipsing around temples all day! It was well worth it though.

The previous night we had been to the sunset over Bakay Mountain and the next day we headed straight for the main event, Angkor Wat. It's been described as the 8th wonder of the world and was originally a Hinu building called Angkor. In the 6th century it became a Bhuddhist Monastry and the "Wat" was added to illustrate this. OK, history lesson over, there's loads of stuff I could tell about why it faces West instead of the traditional Bhuddist way of East (It was built for Vishnu who was god of the West) and what all the carvings inside are about but I don't want you to fall asleep so I'll just say it was stunning. Surrounded by a moat with huge pillars it was quite a site as the sun was setting.

After Angkor Wat we went to Bayan (Inside Angkor Thom) which displayed intricate carvings of Brahman faces (Which faced in all directions as he was the big boss!) all around. Again, gorgeous, but the heat was starting to get to our dehydrated bodies by now and we couldn't really cope with much more, so we told the driver to take us to one more before we went for a lie down! We'd been walking around for almost 3 and half hours at this stage and I was beginning to get a little templed out! The final site we visited is well known for being where Tomb Raider the movie was filmed and was really weird! It looked as though trees were actually growing out of the old stone though we know that's not possible! It was a bit of a chicken and egg thing we didn't know which came first. All in all it was an ace day but I'm done with temples for a while at least!

We had a very early night and chilled out the next day, visited a local museum (Super snazzy though) all about Angkor Wat and the Khmer history. Lots of religious stories and cool artefacts. I didn't know how closely linked Hinduism and Bhuddism were but it seems VERY!

Siem Reap was an excellent place to stay. Although a little depressing, many amputees begging and kids selling books to make money to go to school. These kids had the best English I've heard anywhere in Asia. When they found out we were from England they all reeled off the following... "London is your capital, Gordon Brown in your Prime Minister (Some even listed the 5 before him!) there are 65 million people in England minus 2 because you are here!" I found it hilarious and Kim was suitably impressed enough to buy a book off one of them! It was contrasted with a wicked nightlife and fab food. Strange but well worth a visit.

We are now in Phom Pehm, the capital of Cambodia. We arrived on the bus via the most bizzare stop yet. The local bus stop was selling deep fried spiders (A Cambodian delicacy) Now as you all know (Geez maybe more than most!!) I HATE spiders. They scare me more than anything in the world and seeing all these silver bowls piled high with big black creatures was terrifying. However...I was VERY brave. A girl on the bus bought a spider and gave me one of the legs and I ATE IT!!! It tasted rather like a BBQ flavoured crisp. Anyway, although it wasn't as hideous as I thought it would be it was STILL a spider, and I'm in NO hurry to try another! The second amusement at this stop was the little girl (Trying to sell me pineapple) who straight away said "You are Cambodian" the look of perplexity on her face when I said was English was hilarious. She was comparing her skin to mine and looking at me as if I was nuts! She then touched Kim's skin and said "She English, you Cambodian, but both same same beautiful" Ah bless. I still didn't buy the pineapple though.

That's it from me today, heading to some depressing museums (Genocide and National) and The Killing Fields over the next few days so the next blog will probably be a depressing affair, apologies in advance!

Hope you are all well,

Sel

xx