Alman: We arrived in Siem Reap after another long, continual-honking and boring bus trip, counting down now how many more of these we would have to suffer! We were picked up by a friend of our tour guide in Mondulkiri, who took us straight to a suitable hostel for us to stay and was full of promises for the next 3 day's trip to the temples of ANGKOR! Hungery and tired we had him take us straight to the mexican restaurant VIVA, which under Steve Glick's advice, served $1.50 margaritas...we were SOLD! After too much carbohydrated and fake cheese we padded around the small but lively night life of Siem Reap before getting into a tuktuk and....'oh...crap...what was the name of our hostel again?' 40 minutes and 5 stops later we arrived home. Oops.
Next morning began at 4am in order to witness the glory of Angkor Wat at sunrise. Well....not much to report from that, it was cloudy enough to not see the sun at all and much to the disappointment of the hundreds of photographers there, we didn't waste time by getting start into the temples. All morning we wondered around the 'small tour' of Angkor's most famous temples. The most amazing ones had faces of god on the towers and huge tree roots growing over and inbetween the ancient walls and windows. We took lots of photos and chatted to other tourists, but by 10am we were pretty knackered! Thus headed back to bed, ha, but it was very hot and we had only had street fruit for breakfast! We chilled all afternoon, exploring more of the town and a touch of shopping. But the highlight was most certainly when we walked into the Blue Pumkin Bakery! AppleMac did bakeries - this was it. There was a whole top floor known as the 'cool lounge' where we lay on white sofas and were brought our food on trays! Needless to say, we were there a while.
Next day we started the temples at 2pm in order to view the sunset at 6pm. We wizzed around the different ones, meeting a small Cambodian boy in one who immediatly became our tour guide and spoke the best english we'd met so far! We also met two Canadian girls our age and agreed to meet for gin and tonics that evening (we'd found a place where they were only $2) But before going out on the town we stopped to try one of these famous Thai massages. Lying next to each other in what can only be describes as convict pijamas, the thai woman bent and stretched us, their tiny fingers stronger than work tools, until we were 'relaxed'. Very funny experience.

That evening we went to 'The Temple' bar with our new friends. Hattie wrote our names on the wall in black marker pen and we danced on the dancefloors podiums. Later as the girls headed off, we got chatting to some guys from America, the 'Yale' boys, who worked on Wall Street, New York. Late night involved breaking into their hotel swimming pool and home near dawn. Next day was not so fun however, as having to check out of our hostel and not leaving for Bangkok till 2.30AM we dripped and mopped around all day feeling very sorry for ourselves...and the 4 hours of pouring rain didn't help, Pizza hut did though!

1 quick night in Bangkok meant booking our (second to last) bus to Koh Phangan island and another trip to MBK shopping mall. We fixed 'SamCam' (Hattie's beloved Mulberry hangbag) saw the new Harry Potter, cried, a lot, and bought lots of fake Benefit make-up. Good Day!!

Koh Phangan harbour was influtrated with young backpackers just like ourselves and excited and chatty about the Full Moon party to come. Luckily our accomodation was far from this on the East, and we were delighted with the beautiful calm beach and hotel in which we were to stay. We lay in the sun, by the pool, ate every spicy green mango salad (which I failed at!) and chilled, saving our energy for the night to come. We bought Full Moon flurecent t-shirt and redbull in preparation for our 8pm boat taxi to Haad Rin beach, where the party was to be held. Estimated at about 15,000 people there we explored the already very busy beach, painted our legs, arms and faces with flurecent paint and bought a bucket. Time to party. There was fire jump ropes, long slides with fire on either side, huge podiums, hundreds of drink and food stalls, and a designated sleeping area! We had a fantastic time dancing like maniacs, bumping into the occassional familiar face and chatting to new friends. At 6am, alas, it was dawn and time to go. Great night to remember, and worth the stress of getting there in time! Next day, as you can imagine involved: sleep, cheeseburgers, sleep, little bit of swimming pool and sleep.

The next day we were sad to leave our beautiful paradise, but there were more Thai islands to explore. Last bus ride (thank god) was to Krabi beach, where we are staying now. Not the paradise we left, but has a great night market for food and some of the best accommodation we've stayed in yet. Today we got the local bus to Ao Nang, and walked (under Buffie's instruction) along the beach, over the 'Monkey Mountain' or whatever it was called and onto the Chentara Resort's private beach....not too shabby! We swam and sunbathed, but after paying a ridiculious TWO POUNDS for a Pepsi we decided it was time to use the Resort's facilitieds, aka the swimming pools, jaccuzzi and sun loungers. Was well worth it. Now off to Koh Pi Pi tomorrow, then meeting Dad in phucket for the weekend, can't wait! Only 2 more weeks to go :-(