Suzi 20/07/06 (Re-Sent!)

DIDN'T ARRIVE THE FIRST TIME, RE-SENT 25/07/06!

Firstly, apologies to everyone for the complete lack of contact over the last 10 days, we've been having a fab time and have been very slack! Am aiming to redeem ourselves with a big catch-up now and tomorrow so here's what we have been up to.

Angkor was amazing. Sunset was slightly obscured by the monsoon season heavy clouds but was still very pretty and a very chilled out way to finish a hectic day. We then spent from 7am to 5pm the following day exploring some of the temples throughout Angkor and finished our day with a climb to the top of Angkor Wat for the views. Possibly the scariest thing I've done for a while! We sat at the middle level for a while for a rest from the sun and couldn't understand why so few people were going up. Became more than apparent half way up the last flight of steps when they became an almost vertical climb, with hands and feet holding on for dear life. Worth every heart-rending second to see the whole complex laid out beneath us though. My favourite temple was Ta Phrom. It has been restored only so that the temple is safe for visitors and then left it to the jungle. Its now half-overgrown, with enormous crocodile trees seeming to grow out of the temple structure, and its beautiful, like stepping back in time to when the ruins were first discovered.

We finished our time in Siam Reap by hiring bikes and braving the traffic to explore the slightly less touristy parts of town. Thorsten mastered Cambodian rules of the road pretty quickly (there are none, you just go!) but I was petrified all day! Was a really nice way to see the town and we actually did enjoy it enough to also hire bikes in Phomn Penh to get around, so not as bad as I'm making out. We went out to the River and to the Royal Residence, which was quite a shock as it was just a very nice house with a security guard, not what we were expecting at all.

We decided to beak our journey in Kampong Thom to see a bit of the "real" Cambodia. Spent just one night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Got completely addicted to the best pineapple shakes we've ever tasted and ate fishbone soup on the market with the locals for tea. Interesting taste but definitely not addicted to that! We visited a hilltop temple at Santouk by moto-taxi and that was an experience in itself. 30 mins on the back of a honda 50cc bouncing down village roads is akin to any bottom toning machine on the market. We could hardly walk by the time we got off but then managed 809 steps exactly for beautiful views of the sunset over the rice paddies below. Well worth it, although not sure my backside would agree after the return journey! As we were riding back through the village, towards the main road, a group of about 10 children came running over from where they had been playing football and ran along next to us, each giving us a high five from the back of the moto! We're getting so used to people always wanting money from us (not a complaint, we can understand exactly why but you do have to get used to it) that it was a really nice experience to be so innocently welcomed.

We then enjoyed 3 days in Phomn Penh. Its a very small capital city but pretty cosmopolitan and lots of fun in the evenings. Had several enjoyable meals sitting on patio terraces built out over the lake and managed to avoid constant hassle from tuk-tuk drivers by having hired our bikes. We stayed at a really nice little guesthouse run by a french ex-pat family and enjoyed baguettes croissants and omlettes every morning. Bliss! Most memorable experience was visiting the Genocide museum. It was the highest level security prison during the Pol Pot regime and was truly grisly, with over 20,000 people imprisoned but only 7 known survivors. There are 14 graves in the old school playground, of the 14 victims still tied to torture beds when it was liberated in 1979 and it was very sad to see what humans are capable of. The trials are still taking place so it remains to be seen if anyone is ever held truly accountable.

Off to bed now so will write about Vietnam tomorrow. Till then!