An early start to the morning, thanks Miss A, who hasn't realised holidays are for sleeping in. . . It was off to Angkor Artisans.

Angkor Artisans is a Cambodian company which employs rural people who have little opportunity in education or vocational skills due to either the distance from the main cities or of their financial background. Each person undertakes a year long 'traineeship' where they are taught a specific skill, ranging from stone or wood carving, lacquering, ceramics, silver plating or silk work and are fully qualified at the end of this year.

The artists themselves are paid at a higher salary than the average person and after the training returns to their community, continuing their employment there.

The centre in Siem Reap provides a guided tour, showing all the different artisans at work. The work is truely gorgeous, so hard to believe they can do work at this level after only 12 months. If the stone wasn't so heavy I think a couple of the carvings would have been making their way back to Australia.

A shop is also on the premises, where you can buy the end products. Ice creams and smoothies later and it was back to the hotel to unfortunately start to pack up for our afternoon flight to Bangkok.

Another amazing lunch at the hotel, had to have the Cambodian Amok one last time before leaving.

We cannot emphasise enough how wonderful this place is. Nothing was ever too hard for the staff, always smiling, laughing and so helpful. The only downsides were simply things that the hotel can't control, like the music from the neighbouring bar.

As we left the hotel staff gave us tradtional cambodian scarfs. We had seen other guests leaving and none had revieved the scarfs so we suspect we received them in part because of Miss A as they had really taken to her, with one of the staff members saying she was going to keep her!

Large tips left for the staff. They were amazing and one day soon we will return.

A tuk tuk ride to the airport and this time we had time to relax before our plane left. An uneventful but really quick flight to Bangkok and it was into a minivan to BelAire Bangkok. 1000baht for a minivan to the hotel. And into the 'Middle East Quarter' as Philip has named it. He suspects in a few short years this area really will be where tourists from the Middle East will choose to stay. The entire area surrounding BelAire Bangkok has middle eastern food stalls, restaurants and the money changers. It is telling when there is more arabic writing than english on the signs.

BelAire Bangkok was recommended by a travel agent and unfortunately we have little good to say about it.

On check in, the staff were just plain rude. Getting our room keys we headed up to the 11th floor to find two of the rooms had twin beds when we specifically asked for king beds. Back down to the reception and explained and she wasnt not apologetic asking if it was ok if they could push them together. It was agreed this was ok as we have in past travels come across this quite oftenwhere they push two singles together to make a double, even though it is unexpected in a place like this.

Back up and it was clear that the beds couldnt be pushed together due to the phone and console not being able to be moved. Back down to reception and this is where I got annoyed. It was very clear the receptionist 'Tuk' was well aware that the beds could not be pushed together. I think she thought we would just put up with it and although we were moved to new rooms she didn't want to do it.

After finally checking in we wandered down the road for a quick tea as it was now 6pm. 'Gullivers Tavern' . . . Don't recommend this either. The food was almost flavourless and when Phil can't eat a burger you know something is wrong with it. The waitress spend more time 'puttting on her face' then serving and it was clear that we were interrupting her. We didnt stay long and headed back to our rooms for a drink and bed.

Such a disappointing end to our day and really shows what the difference can be between small boutique hotels and big hotels. Absolutely chalk and cheese.