You'll no doubt be pleased to hear that I'm back in the land of the living, albeit I'm now even more weak and exhausted.

Sunday night I had some very terrifyingly odd nightmares so when I woke up feeling weird on Monday morning I put it down to a lack of sleep. However by lunchtime I was aching from head to toe and had a splitting headache and so decided to go home and take the afternoon off. The diarrhoea (??) then kicked in and I was well and truly bed ridden. As I'd already had a mild dose of something similar in my 2nd week, I decided that if nothing improved come Tuesday morning I would be heading to the local clinic.

So there I was Tuesday morning first thing heading to the recommended English speaking clininc in town. First I had to see the doctor who went through my symptoms and told me I needed a blood test.......great. The 2nd man who took my sample couldn't find a vein and so ended up sticking me in the back of my hand. (Don't worry mum, I checked that the needle came out of sterile packaging before allowing him to use it on me!).

Whilst waiting for the results I had an interesting toilet experience and for the more delicate amongst you I suggest skipping the next bit. Still having a severe case of the squits and having been out for a while I needed to avail myself of the facilities, which were a ceramic squat toilet with no loo roll and a manual water flush. Perfect. Fortunately I had tissues in my bag but the word 'violent' pretty much summed up the type of diarrhoea I was experiencing. If I had squatted it would have gone everywhere (my legs included) so I had to sit (yeuch) on the edge to go. All in all, not the most pleasant memory of my trip.

Blood results back and no malaria or denghe, which was all I cared about. Very dehydrated though and so I was made to take 2 different types of medication before being allowed to leave. I barely made it home in a tuk tuk as this was desperately trying to escape my body as soon as possible.

Anyway, enough bottom talk. I was given 4 drugs - anti sickness, anti spasmodic bowel stuff, anti biotics and rehydration sachets. The whole trip cost $35 which was less than I thought it would be.

The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in bed and then yesterday I decided to venture out as the other girls had a day off for the former queen's birthday. We went into town for brunch before heading out to the landmine museum. We mistakenly thought that it was about 15 minutes ride - wrong. An hour later, having driven through an almighty storm, torrential rain and having haggled the driver out of any profit, we arrived.

Definitely not worth the effort as we were only there 30 mins before heading back. We had no water with us as hadn't counted on being gone quite so long. On the way back we got a puncture, so we were all turfed out onto the side of the road for half an hour whilst he went off to get a repair. The locals just drove past and laughed at us.....even a monk. We're being all deferential as per custom and not looking at him when he starts laughing and waving. We must have looked a sight.

Time for a quick lesson on landmines......it's the teacher coming out in me you know!

40,000 Khmer have lost limbs due to mines with one in 275 people being amputees.
Every month they claim 30-35 victims. A decade ago it was nearer 300.
Mines are designed to maim, not kill, as this costs an army/government more money.
Much agricultural land is mined, resulting in cattle deaths and food shortages due to an inability to farm.
Land that seems safe in the dry season can turn deadly when the ground softens in the wet season.
At the rate they are going it will take 100 years to clear the 4-6 million remaining mines.
As of 2007 over 100 countris signed the Ottawa Treaty banning production of mines. However, the US, China and Russia refused and are still producing them.

I will never be straying from well trodden, cleared paths, even when dumped at the side of the road and needing a pee.