Hey everyone, as promised the next post is here and takes us from Siem Reap to Singapore where we met Chalky and Sophie.

Day 35 - 5th December (Phnom Penh to Siem Reap)

Today we travelled to Siem Reap.We took an express bus that left in the afternoon which meant we had the morning to just chill.The bus should have only taken around 4 hours, but today it took longer, to us it felt like it took forever (in reality it took 5/6 hours).It was a fairly small bus/transit van so we couldn't get much done in terms of writing journal and sorting out photos, which was a pain.

As we arrived late and to a different location as to where we thought we would get picked up (the ticket office rather than the coach station) our plans to be picked up by our hotel got a bit messy.Luckily an American lady who lived in Siem Reap noticed we were having some difficulty and rang the hotel on our behalf (speaking the local lingo and everything).We were soon picked up and were taken to our hotel which was a bit outside of town.

The night staff at the Angkor Spirit Palace Hotel were so helpful that within an hour we had a rough plan of which temples we wanted to visit for the next three days with some good prices.We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, but we ate really quickly as there were loads of bugs!!!!

Day 36 - 6th December (Siem Reap - Day 1)

This morning we had a bit of a lie in and were ready to leave around 9.45.It was going to be a really long day as we were visiting some of the earlier temples which were a lot further away, this was after we had to stop off at the main office to get our 3 day passes.

Our first stop was the Roleus Group, consisting of Bakong, Preah Ko and Lolei.These are some of the earliest examples of temples in the area.We also got our first taste of 'come into my shop/restaurant' or 'buy cold drink from me' requests and these were some of the quieter temples!

As the Roleus Group were so far away, by the time we'd visited them it was time for lunch so we stopped for a quick bite to eat before heading to Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre.These were a bit out of the way so visiting these took the rest of the afternoon.On the way back we stopped at Pre Rup to watch the sunset.There were so many other people who had the same idea and it was hard to find somewhere to sit as there were loads of ants everywhere!It was such a popular spot to watch the sunset, that some locals had cottoned on and were selling beers to enhance your experience.

We really enjoyed looking at the temples we had seen, and were looking forward to visiting the later, more detailed and popular ones tomorrow.

The action didn't end when the sun set though, as there was a massive thunder storm on the way back to the hotel.Poor Richart, our driver, got absolutely soaked trying to keep us dry.And to make matters worse, 200m from our hotel the tuk tuk ran out of fuel as Richart was not given enough petrol money for the day.He ended up pushing us to the nearest shop where he could buy some extra himself.

When we got back we didn't fancy heading into town, or getting eaten alive in the hotel restaurant, so we watched the storm while we ordered our food which we then enjoyed in the comfort of our room.

Day 37 - 37th December (Siem Reap - Day 2)

It was an 8.30 start this morning and we did what is known as the 'Grand Circuit'.We visited Preah Khan, Neak Pean and Ta Som before lunch.At Neak Pean we ended up buying a really cool painting.

After lunch we visited the more recognisable temples of the group as they were used in the filming of Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones.These were Ta Prohm (Tomb Raider, with the trees growing out of the ruins), Banteay Kdei and Prasat Kravan.

When we got back we jumped in and out of the pool to cool off before getting ready to head into town.When we went to reception Richart wasn't there so we had to get another driver who tried to charge us to go to the Butterfly Restaurant, even though tuk tuks were free to town.His reasoning was that it was further to the restaurant but after he'd dropped us off in town it only took us 2 minutes to walk there.After all of this we ended up missing the traditional Khmer dancing but we still enjoyed the restaurant and the meal, and Jen even managed to buy a present for baby JJ from the shop there.After, we rang the hotel to arrange a pick-up and fortunately Richart was around.

Day 38 - 8th December (Siem Reap - Day 3)

This morning we had a very early start to see sunrise at Angkor Wat.As we headed out we were very pleased to see the stars, but as we got closer a load of clouds were starting to come over and by the time we actually got there we couldn't see any of the stars anymore.Instead of seeing the sunrise over the temple, all we saw was the sky getting brighter, and to top it off there was scaffolding over the front, which kind-of spoilt the pictures (they still looked awesome though!).We didn't hang around too long as not all of the temple was open yet and we'd decided to come back later.

Next we visited Angkor Thom, the first bit we encountered was the East Gate which was amazing and was a really grand entrance to the ancient city.Richart dropped us off at Bayon, and before having a look inside we went for a ride on an elephant around it.This was the first time either of us had been on an elephant and we really enjoyed it!We then explored Bayon, which is a really cool temple as it pretty much consists of loads of giant faces carved in stone.

After this we visited all the other main sights of the city, which included the Royal Palace, Elephant Terrace and Leper King Terrace. We missed some others out as they didn't look as impressive as some of the others we had already seen.

After lunch we went back to Angkor Wat so that we could have a proper look around and climb to the top (which was closed earlier).It was sweltering hot with clear blue skies (why couldn't it have been this clear for sunrise?).The temple itself was magnificent and we were fascinated by the numerous Hindu stories that were carved onto the walls.

We then headed back to the hotel and spent the afternoon messing around in the pool with the underwater camera, enjoying the sunshine. Dinner this evening was at one of the two Khmer Kitchens, which was soo good we had to skip the scheduled drink at Ankgor What?This could've been because we had a jug of beer with our meal J

Day 39 - 9th December (Siem Reap to Kuala Lumpur)

We had an early start as we were flying to KL today.We got a shock when we got to the airport as we forgot about the service charge to leave the country.When we tried to pay with our last dollars they wouldn't accept our slightly worn $20 note but luckily we were able to pay by card.

On arrival at KL we followed the really good directions proved by the hotel, Classic Inn Budget Hotel, and got there with no problems.To get from the airport to hotel we used a coach, a train, some walking, a monorail followed by just a little more walking.

As there wasn't much left of the day we wandered around Times Square shopping mall, which was right next door to the hotel.We saw the indoor theme park, watched the new Chronicles of Narnia film (we are such big kids) and had dinner at Papa-Johns (we knew this was naughty but we vowed to try some Malaysian food the next day).

Day 40 - 10th December (Kuala Lumpur - Day 1)

Today we took our time to get ready and go out as we were feeling the early starts catching up with us.

We were in town the same time as the Malaysian International Car Show so we bought ourselves some tickets online earlier on in the week, and we used the public transport system to make our way there.It was pretty cool to check out some of the cars, but nowhere near as good as the ones in the UK at the NEC and Earls Court.The highlight had to be a massive replica of Bumblebee from the Transformers movie, the replica of the Batmobile was pretty poor.We soon left the motorshow as we ran out of things to see so we headed out to check out some of the local sights.

We saw Central Mosque (just the outside), Central Market, Chinatown and a really pretty Hindu temple (we were luckily there in time for us to take Prashad, and also the shoe attendant guy was Gujarati so let us off for not paying the shoe fare as we had just put our change in the donations box). From the temple we walked back to our monorail line to catch the train back to Times Square, where we had dinner at one of the Malaysian Restaurants there.By the time we had finished it was time to go to bed so we headed back to the hotel.

Day 41 - 11th December (Kuala Lumpur - Day 2)

Today we got up early and headed to the Petronas Towers to get tickets to go up.We waited for 2.5 hours and managed to get just the bridge tickets for later on (the combined bridge and very top tickets had already sold out and we also found out that you can now buy in advance so we could've saved ourselves the early start L, but we were lucky that we actually managed to get the tickets for that day at all).

We were up so early that after buying the tickets we still had time to go back to the hotel for breakfast before heading out for the day.We bought tickets for the hop-on, hop-off bus that took us to all the major sights in the city.We stopped at a really cool bird zoo where there were loads of peacocks roaming around.We then made our visit to the twin towers to catch the spectacular city views from the bridge and walked around the park that's around the base of it.The towers themselves were a piece of art.

For dinner we ventured into Bukit Bintang.We couldn't find somewhere to eat straight away and in a tired state Krish decided he wanted to go to the Australian Grill place instead of going for something more traditional, not the best choice for our last night in Malaysia!

Day 42 - 12th December (Kuala Lumpur to Singapore)

Today we left KL for Singapore.We took an amazing coach that had reclining seats, personal TVs and loads of leg room, all for about £9 each.It was a very comfortable bus ride, possible the best by coach we have ever had!

We got into Singapore and headed to our hostel , Pillows and Toast, where we met up with Sophie and Chalky (who had just got there from Indonesia).We chatted for ages before we remembered we hadn't eaten.We headed out to Little India, which def had the feel of India about it, although a hell of a lot cleaner!!!!There were loads of Indian men hanging around on the streets socialising, with hardly any women to be seen.We went to a few shops before heading to have curry at the Banana Leaf Restaurant, where they actually serve you food on a banana leaf.It was very good food and we had a really good night catching up!

On the way back to the hostel we stopped at Orchard Road where all of the shops are.We had a look in some shops, found an M&S for Chalky and Sophie (although it was closing) and enjoyed the very pretty Christmas lights/decorations.

Day 43 - 13th December (Singapore - Day 1)

As a group we delayed getting out of bed until the latest possible time, which was around 5 minutes before breakfast finished.This, as suggested by the hostel name, was just toast with bonus tea/coffee and jams.

We left the hotel with the intention of heading to the beach, but unfortunately on the way to the SMRT the heavens opened and it began chuck it down.Plan B was swiftly thought up and put into action: we headed to a nearby mall and got an expensive coffee to chill with until we thought of what to do with the rest of our day.The verdict was to stay indoors and look around the shops that Singapore had to offer.We headed back to Orchard Road and went into ION shopping centre.We spent time wandering around and split into two groups, boys and girls.This kept the shops interesting for everyone.One shop that did catch everyone's eye was called 'The Chocolate Research Facility', which had numerous flavours of gourmet chocolate available at the standard Singapore high price.

We then went to the tourist information centre to find out more about the night safari and other attractions, Jen even got a free gift for filling out a feedback form.We had some time to kill before heading to the night safari, so we went to get ice creams.Krish ordered the biggest one he could get, this resulted in him not feeling right for a little while, which probably served him right.

The night safari was really cool and we got to see a lot of animals close up, the best was the tiger.The show was entertaining as well as the lady hosting had a really good sense of humour.We used the vodka that we had with us (thanks Soph and Chalky), which was meant to drunk at the beach, to make vodka slushies.They were quite tasty and were easily consumed as we walked around the park.

By the time we got back it was really late (1pm) but we were all really hungry as we hadn't eaten any dinner.The solution was to eat at one of the many Chinese restaurants at the end of the road we were staying.The food was really tasty and didn't cost too much at all.