Becoming an English teacher was hard work - but very rewarding. Cambodia is still a country in need of a lot of help; when I went North to Banteay Chhmar I saw huge 4x4s emblazoned with aid agency logos everywhere, and along the streets of the villages you often see plaques on the water pumps giving the name of someone who donated it. As I was spending some time in Siem Reap (no joke, we were there so long our guesthouse owners adopted us as part of the famil...

This morning I got up at 4a.m. to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Not being a morning person, this is momentous for me, but it was definitely worth it. We tuk-tuk-ed along the pitch black roads, then joined the hordes of people making the pilgrimage across the huge moat into the inky darkness of Angkor. Positioned by the lake, I got a great spot - front row right in front of the temple. Slowly but surely the sky changed from ebony, to midnight blue, to purple, p...

Hired bicycles today and did my second day of the Angkor temples. The whole Angkor site is set in gorgeous rolling (and thankfully flat) countryside, so cycling is a great way to experience it. Our bikes weren't exactly cutting-edge technology (I think they're probably older than Grandad) but they did well and I got around a big chunk of the site. I started at Angkor Thom, an ancient walled city with an impressive temple, Bayon, at its centre. Bayon is a seri...

Day one of the mighty Angkor temples... I arrived back in lovely Siem Reap yesterday, very happy to leave Sisaphon behind and excited about the prospect of seeing the Angkor Wat complex of ruins. Ben and Ambika were back too, so we had a night out to celebrate everyone being back together - ending up in Angkor What? - well, it had to be done. We're trying to find somewhere to volunteer, so if anyone knows of somewhere deserving in Siem Reap let me know - I've g...

Today I've been playing Tomb Raider for real. In search of adventure, Cords and I headed out to the middle of nowhere (there isn't a KFC for miles) to see some ancient ruins. We weren't disappointed... We'd heard about a cluster of remote temples called Banteay Chhmar, quite far North near the Thai border, so headed North to Sisaphon which is the nearest town. Sisaphon is the fourth place now which has a name we can't pronounce - it also has A LOT of flies. Pre...