So, goodbye Siem Reap, your temples are a wonder. Less wonderful but just as amazing is the array of pillocks who come to see them. One of my motivations for this big trip was to scrub out the sensation that I ha somehow missed out by not doing the travelling thing when I was younger. I felt the urge to see my passport start to look like an old sailor's arm with all the visa stamps, to scare myself a bit, to understand other cultures and points of view. This ...

I did promise to lose weight while I was away, but not everyone got the memo. My brain thought it sensible, my waist too, and even my heart bought-in, but my taste buds weren't at the meeting. Theoretically my base line was 18 stone 11.5 pounds (120 kilos), but it was actually 19 stoneish, for reasons I won't bore you with. We know you can sustainably lose a kilo per week and I would be away for eight weeks, so 112 kilos (or 17 stone 6 pounds) should be do-ab...

I said that I couldn't pin down why I loved this country. Now I can. Angkor is the jaw dropping, achingly beautiful twelfth century array of Hindu temples near Siem Reap. It's a world heritage site that has the odd M16 round in it. The US has a lot to answer for, not just the Khmer Rouge How can I write about it? It's like trying to capture the essence of the Mona Lisa, Rachmaninov's second piano concerto or a young Liz Taylor. Just get off your backside and ...

Let me admit a dreadful flaw: I am not a good recreational reader. I read slowly, effectively reading out loud, but in my head, trying to suck all of the juice out of what I am reading. I would love to claim that this was built into me by my professional experience, but actually it has always been a problem. My only involvement with a book club requires one book to be read each year, and I retain an unparalleled track record of not even reading that one book in...

My gears just crunched loudly, deafeningly, and I've not quite recovered. I left Singapore and flew to Phnom Penh. Singapore: terrifyingly clean, wealthy, educated, multicultural, smart, new, tech-smart and confident. An entrepôt port for two centuries and a jewel on the international map. Cambodia: filthy, achingly poor, introspective, brutalised, backward and directionless. One sweats the most out of it's twentieth century past, the other stuck in it's...