Sorry it's been so long to update!! We've been very lazy and also had some lack of internet along the way! So this might be a bit of an essay!

We stayed in Sihanoukville, Cambodia's main seaside town, for just over a week- based mainly at Serendipity beach. Our time mainly consisted of chilling on the beach; swimming; being asked if we wanted manicures, pedicures or massages; and drinking a bit too much with lots of people we met in our guesthouse. We didn't end up doing any of the day trips on offer- instead being lazy and taking a chance to chill out! Also the trips all start early in the morning and since we failed to wake up before about midday we would have missed them all anyway!! Will bought lots of psy-trance from a German dj we met, and we blagged Will a set in one of the many bars!! He was better than both the resident djs!!! Will also suffered from a diabolical haircut during our stay here- he stormed out refusing to pay after asking the lady to cut 1cm off, and then being left with only 1cm!! A highlight of Sihanoukville- BBQs on the beach sitting at a table only 1m from the sea!! Oh and a real cup of English tea!

We caught a bus back to Phnom Penh and stayed at lakeside- a backpacker area. A few hours after arriving some friends we'd met in Sihanoukville turned up at the same guesthouse so we continued in a fairly similar pattern. We spent a lot of time in one bar, as we got to know the bar man, and they had a wii set up with bowling tournaments!! The loser buys the shots! Our guesthouse was right on the lake, with decking and a bridge walkway to get to our room! Quite sad though, as some rich business people are planning to develop the land into big hotel complexes etc meaning whats here now will soon be gone- they are getting rid of the lake by filling it in with sand- this had started when we were here and the result was that the guesthouses around are starting to flood! Also houses not the other side of the lake are being flooded and the people simply evicted. Apparently the lake is full of possibly 100000 bodies from the war, and it is easier for the authorities to fill it than to deal with the identification and paperwork of uncovering so many bodies- was a bit freaky to realize we were sleeping above this. We did manage one trip on this visit to Phnom Penh- S21, a former high school which was changed during the war into a prison and torture site- of the thousands of people held there only a few survived. The museum had pictures of all the people held there- a horrible amount of young children and babies.

From here we took the bus to Kratie- this is heading towards the north of Cambodia, a very quiet and boring town. The only reason we visited it, is that this is the best place to see the rare Irrawaddy river dolphins. We took a boat trip and saw quite a few- one which came really close to the boat! Very funny looking dolphins, as they have no nose!

We continued to head north to Ratanakiri province, where we saw a different side to Cambodian life- limited communications, a quiet market town with little to see in the town itself. Most of the journey there was on mud roads, and we had to stop for a while when the bus in front of ours slipped into the ditch twice, and our drivers helped to get them out. Everyone seems to help each other in these sorts of situations here- whereas at home I'm sure most people would carry on driving. We booked to take a two day trek with 2 Dutch girls, walking through the jungle, sleeping in a minority village and walking back a different route the next day. Usually people sleep one night in the jungle on the way then a second night in the village- this meant a long walk on the first day to get to the village in one trek. This probably would have been ok if the ranger hadn't got lost and we didn't walk in circles for hours- we did eventually reach a village (the wrong one we found out later) but had power walked through the jungle all day and were exhausted and covered in cuts, scratches and bites. Our guides cooked really good food throughout- and carried everything to do this so their packs must have been so heavy! The village was really interesting and our guide (who was from another village) taught us a lot about rural Cambodia. People here don't have to buy land, they can build a house wherever they like- it costs about US$500 to buy the tools and they use wood from the surrounding area. The guide was astonished when we told him how much houses cost at home! On the walk back we were shocked that our guides led us into a family's home in the middle of nowhere to take a break- and then told us they didn't know the family, and only two young children were there. Apparently this practice is normal here, and they seemed shocked that at home you cannot just go into someone else's home and sit down! Also, the same with food- they helped themselves to a family's crop to make lunch for us, and said the family wouldn't mind!

Our hotel in Ratanakiri was the cheapest room yet- $4 a night and it was a massive room. Only problem was the ants that we couldn't get rid of however much we sprayed them with the shower! The staff wanted to sell us their tours constantly- particularly annoying was them sitting down at the table when we ordered food and just wanted to have dinner! On the last day in Ratanakiri we hired a motorbike and visited some of the local waterfalls and the volcanic crater lake- which looked lovely for swimming, but we ended up their quite late and it was beginning to cool down so we didn't swim!

Hope everyone's good at home! Love to all xx