After a gorgeous few days relaxing on the lovely island of Koh Lipe where Charles completed the "Pad Thai challenge" (in England before we left he declared that he loved it so much he was going to eat it for every meal when we were in Thailand) we got back on a boat and returned to Langkawi where we flew back to Kuala Lumpur for the night. On Wednesday morning we got up before the sparrows had even thought about farting and flew here to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We landed and queued up to get our visa on arrival. You MUST have a passport photo our lonely planet had told us but we found no photo no problem- as long as you give the immigration man an extra dollar! Welcome to corruption country. We then handed our passports in to get the visa and where told to wait at the end of the counter. This gave us a chance to see their unique system of processing them- 10 officials sat in a line passing our passport from one to the other all writing one piece of information on the visa. It was not like they had a specialist area but one wrote the date on the top, the next your first name and so on until it was completed! To be fair we didn't have to wait long- just enough time for us to have a debate about which would be quicker- this system or 10 officers each doing a visa?

We walked through the arrivals hall and a lovely smiling Mr Monn was waiting for us- the guesthouse we are staying in had arranged a free pick up. We went over to his very smart black and red tuk tuk and climbed in- the only problem was our huge bags that took up a lot more space than us! The tuk tuks here are different to the ones in Thailand where it is all one thing- Cambodian ones are trailers that attach onto the back of a motorbike or scooter- I really want one for my Vespa! The drive, as all drives have been here was a spectacle in itself- although i think the official side of the road to drive is the right no one seems to mind too much about which one their on. Pulling out of a junction is done when you arrive at it no matter what is coming as long as you beep and if you reach a red light? No problem just go round it on the pavement!

We spent the first day wondering around and getting our bearings and booked a trip out with Mr Monn for Thursday- he would take us out for the whole day for $13USD. And what a day it was. We were in Siem Reap to see Angkor- a region that served as the seat of the Khmer empire, which flourished from approximately the ninth century to the thirteenth century. The word "Angkor" is derived from sanskrit

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meaning "city."The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal monarch" and "god-king", until 1431, when Ayutthayan (Thai) invaders sacked the Khmer capital, causing its population to migrate south to the capital, Pnomh Penh. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, the world's largest single religious monument. Recently researchers and mappers have also stated that they believe Angkor to have been the largest pre industrial city in the world.

We went to Angkor Wat first. The thing that immediately is the square moat that surrounds it- a mere 190metres wide! It puts most British castles to shame. Behind that you can see the stunning towers rising up above it. After crossing the moat and open ground you finally get inside and breath a sigh of relief as the cool air from the 8 metre thick stone walls lets you at least slow down the sweating for a minute or two. We walked around admiring the beautiful relief carvings absolutely everywhere, walls, floors, ceilings and doorways and marvelling at how many thousands of hours it must have taken. One of the first western visitors to the temple was Antonio de Magdalena, a Portugese monk who visited in 1586 and to be honest he describes it much more poetically then I ever could- he said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of." I had heard of it before, Charles hadn't but what we felt was amazing was that hardly any people in the UK have and there weren't a huge amount of visitors there. After a couple of hours exploring we walked back out along the bridge to where Mr Monn had said he would wait for us. We walked round and round and round the car park with hundreds of Tuk Tuks in it and people chasing us "hello lady hello foreigner you want water? postcards? coconut? t- shirt? water? postcards? hello lady hello sir." There are also lots and lots of tiny children selling stuff which is really sad. At one point a policeman came on his bike and they all legged it away and wend into hiding behind the bushes. Anyway after 3 circuits of the car park we decided to just go and get some lunch and then come back as he may have taken another job and sure enough after we had eaten there he was waiting for us right outside the cafe!

We climbed in and went to the next site, Bayon inside the city walls of Angkor Thom. To get there we passed through magnificent gates and over bridges decorated with rows of statues. Bayon is where there are 171 faces carved into the temple. Apparently there were originally 182 but some have been lost. we climbed up very very steep steps to the top (I mean vertical) to examine them more closely. The interesting thing was that when they were carved they sculptors had specialisms in either doing the right hand side or the left- 2 would join together to complete a face but often the two halves looked quite different. There are loads of theories about who the faces are of- the main ones being Buddhist, Hindu or of the king at the time of course there is much discussion about it but noone will ever know. After we'd scrambled back down we walked to see another area where there was the beautiful "terrace of the elephants" with hundreds carved into the side of the stone, and the less classic "terrace of the lepars"where they too get their chance to be famous.

We flopped Back in the Tuk Tuk with smiling happy Mr Monn to see Ta Prohm temple. All of the the temples were discovered when the forest had taken them over and have been restored fantastically. This one though is still a work in progress and walking around gives you a fantastic idea of the work that has been done. there are huge collapses of the buildings mainly due to the ginormous trees that grow right through the middle of walls. It makes for amazing pictures and sure enough loads of films have been shot there- the most famous one being Indiana Jones but also tombraider (which is when Angelina Jolie started the child collecting with one from here.) It was really nice to see one in a more original state and it made me a bit sad that they are working on it putting new concrete in and rebuilding- I think it is nice to see one a bit more rustic and I hope they leave a couple of the trees in.

The final stop of the day was to Pre Rup temple to watch the sunset. Again we climbed some very steep stairs to the top and that sat down on the lovely warm stone as the sun dipped in the sky and spread out it's stunning red colours. It was a beautiful place to watch it and although it was cloudy it's one we will definitely remember. On the drive back through the countryside with the wind blowing in our faces in the back of the Tuk tuk as the last light was disapearing from the sky I had that lovely ultimate feeling when your body is overcome with happiness and how special a time you are having. It is so important to us to appreciate every moment- time is moving scarily fast now and it won't be long until it will all seem like a dream!

On Friday we went out again with Mr Monn to see the floating villages. Again the drive was fantastic as we headed out of town and got to see Cambodian life- bamboo huts with 4 generations in it, running a little shop or selling petrol out the front and lots of little children running around. We came to the pier where a government official charged us $30USD for a boat trip. This seemed very expensive as the average monthly wage here is $40 USD. We paid our money and went onto the pier where we met our 15 year old driver and his brother who would take us out. Later he would tell us that the price is because they are employed by the government- they take the money and then pay them a small wage which is very sad- they should be able to have their own business.

As we set off on the huge lake (150km wide) he turned to Charles and said you would like to drive?" so Charles got behind the wheel and took it from there. The floating houses were amazing. Tiny huts and boats and people travelling around in little canoes, or for the children a metal tub! We saw the cemetery which is in the river in the mangroves and our guide told us that when the river dries up the huge area that we were travelling on all became dirt. When this happens the families pick up their houses and walk to the mountains where they reposition them. The government bans fishing in the high wet season as it is too dangerous but sadly lot of people still do it as if they don't fish they don't have an income. Unfortunately that leads to a huge amount of deaths and leaves many orphans. We have met orphans everywhere and later gave two a lift back to the orphanage in our tuk tuk. It is so sad they are so beautiful and happy despite having nothing. We went to a floating shop and bought some writing books for the children which were extortionately expensive- what would have been $1 in the market here in town had suddenly inflated to $20. We bargained down and bought 2 packs of exercise books but it made me sad that effectively they were robbing their own children as when they charge that much people are unlikely to buy a lot.

We got back on the boat and went to the tiny floating school which was probably only 30m by 15m and one room big but had 80 kids running around. They were pleased to see us and ran over to have their photo taken with us. Our guide told us that half of the children were orphans and they slept in the school on the floor, relying on government deliveries of food and resources. When we went to the upstairs the teacher was fast asleep in a hammock. After spending a bit of time there we headed back to the pier where we had arrived and met back up with Mr Monn.

In the afternoon we did a bit of shopping as we were sending a parcel back to the UK. We came back to the guesthouse and a really sweet guy who works here called Luykong ran down the road to find a box the right size for us. He then helped us wrap it all up. I said to him can you write down for us what we need to give to the postman? Just that we want cheap post by sea as we had heard they can be scandalous to foreigners trying to send things. He wrote some lines down for us. What does it say? we asked. He replied solemnly "It says please be careful with my parcel. Please transfer it well I would like a very cheap price but a good one. Although I have white skin I am very poor, Thank you and respect to your family" we all laughed and laughed at this and decided we would use it everywhere we went! "I will take you to the post office on motorbike" he continued. So on we got- Him, Charles, me and the massive parcel. Although everyone rides 5 to a bike here I don't think they were used to seeing Westerners do the same thing so as we went the short distance to the post office everyone was laughing, pointing and shouting out to us! It turned out that we didn't need the writing anyway as he came in with us. After we left we got back on the bike and were riding along when he shouted something at me- all I heard was "you want to see it is great place don't worry they don't charge you if you don't buy anything" I replied OK and thought great he's going to take us to some souvenir shop where he gets commission. A minute later we pulled up at the 'lucky mall' where he wanted to show us the supermarket. It was newly built and he had never seen one before so he took us in and we walked up and down the aisles while he looked at things really happy- it was so sweet "maybe one day when I am rich I will shop here" he said. We rode the escalator up and down (apparently when the tiny mall opened it was full of people trying out the escalator) and then went back outside to come back to our lovely guesthouse. He is really lovely and it made me feel very sick when he told me about his aims- he is an orphan and desperate to be a lawyer, he has done year 1 of university but is now working to save money for the next year. It will take him 18months to raise the $340 he needs as he is paid $40 a month for a 15-16 hour day and pays $15 a month rent to share a room. I know this is a situation that hundreds of thousands of people are in and it makes me feel very spoilt and extremely lucky as well as guilty- we spent $60 on the day we saw all the temples after buying entrance tickets etc. The Cambodian people have been through horrific things with the Khmer Rouge- all families seem to have lost somebody but still everyone is so friendly and seem happy. Our guesthouse is a reflection of that- they are so sweet and at night time they put a bedtime story on our pillow!

Today we went out again with Mr Monn for the day for the last time. First we went to the "cultural villgae" which is actually really well done. It is a huge area where they have rebuilt representations of the houses that the different people living in Cambodia have. We also saw a traditional Khmer wedding ceremony- we didn't understand anything but got to dance around behind the bride and groom at the end! We then headed back to Angkor to see a few temples we hadn't had time to do on Thursday. First we went to Banteay Sri which is quite far away from the other ones and is different in that it is constructed in red stone. It is quite amazing that they have worked out that it came from 200km away! In 800AD goodness knows how much work it took to get it all there. It was also the most ornately carved one we had visited with stunning reliefs everywhere you looked. On the way back we passed Mr Monns house where he rents a room and waved at his mum and wife sitting outside.

We then went to the Cambodian landmine museum for a very sobering visit. Ir was started by an amazing man called Aki Ra. At the age of 10, Khmer Rouge soldiers handed Aki Ra his first weapon, an AK-47 as tall as he was, and began teaching him to lay landmines. Only months later, after a pitched battle with Vietnamese forces near Siem Reap, Aki Ra was captured and taken prisoner. Now a conscript in the Vietnamese army, he was again forced to put mines in the ground, this time fighting against the Khmer Rouge. When Vietnamese troops left Cambodia in 1989, Aki Ra was conscripted yet once more, this time by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, who continued to use his skills in the battle against remaining Khmer Rouge forces. He stayed with the army until the mid-1990s, when the United Nations arrived in Siem Reap. He joined the U.N. demining teams soon after, and for the first time in his life, Aki Ra began removing land mines from Cambodian soil, not laying them. This developed into the museum that we visited that also houses children afected by the landmines. They estimate that there are up to 6 million landmines left in Cambodia and on average 40 people per day are killed.

Landmines are horrible things. The whole idea of them is to maim someone and not kill them as more resources are then used by the enemy to treat them in hospital. Many countries still produce them and are stockpiling them- a thought that makes me feel really sick. Although we have signed a treaty to agree not to stockpile them many organisations that many of us do give money to still support things like cluster bombs which harm people in a similar way

A recent report released by Netwerk Vlaanderen and IKV Pax Christi finds that

- Barclays is the 4th largest provider of loans to cluster bomb producers totalling $274 million USD
- HSBC provides the largest amount of investment banking services to cluster bomb producers totalling $657 million USD
- RBS has provided loans to cluster bomb producers totalling at least $64 million USD
I know for one that I will be changing my bank when we get home.

The museum itself was small but amazing- absolutely chocked full with the landmines and bombs he had deactivated over the years and he still does up to 50 a day. He charges $1USD per bomb whereas it cost western teams up to $500. This is because he has spent a lot of time using them himself and relies on this knowledge rather than a huge amount of equipment, although he has been to the UK for training. If you want to learn more about it or support the cause visit www.cambodialandminemuseum.org.

After that very sad visit we climbed back into the Tuk Tuk and visited 2 more temples- Neak Pean and Preah Khan. These ones were much less repaired than the previous ones and it was amazing to see how they were slowly putting fragments of huge arches and other parts together. Feeling as if we had really done Angkor we had a lovely ride home with the wind blowing in our faces and bid Mr Monn good evening until we would see him tomorrow to take us to the airport- Bad times. However we fly to Bangkok tomorrow and then Hong Kong on Tuesday to meet my dad for Christmas- good times!

Wow this has been a long one- I guess it is a reflection of how amazing Siem Reap is and how much we have enjoyed it here...