Sat 19th May: Another early start and eight hours of temple gazing! We visited the sites on the Grand Circuit, Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Pre Rup, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm (magnificent examples of the giant fig trees taking over the doorways and walks of the monuments), Banteay Kdei, Sras Srang and Prasat Kavan. By 2.30 pm we'd covered all we wanted to see today and once again it was searingly hot! A good day though, lots to see, got chatting to a couple...

Fri 18th May: Well, the hotel just gets better and better. Great night's sleep, hot shower this morning and an excellent breakfast of eggs, toast, jam, coffee/juice and three types of fresh fruit, served on the rooftop restaurant at 6 a.m. Our tuk tuk driver met us outside at 6.30 and we set off to follow in the footsteps of Lara Croft (Tomb raider was filmed at some of the temples). We stopped to buy a three-day pass for US $40 then arrived at Angkor Wat before...

A very lazy day today! We checked out of the AFI and moved next door to the Thonebury Hotel. The room is much brighter and bigger and the bathroom is very modern. We spent most of the morning going through our guide books to plan the next three days "doing the temples of Angkor" - after all, this is one of the biggest reasons to visit this part of Cambodia. We had lunch at the Mandalay Inn just down the road; mango chicken curry for Mac and tea leaf salad for ...

After a 5.30 start and breakfast at the hotel we were picked up by tuk tuk and taken to the bus office, only minutes away. We had to be at least 20 mins early and sure enough, we boarded the bus just prior to 7.30, the planned departure time. We sat on the bus for an hour then everyone had to disembark, the bus apparently was not working! Welcome back to Asia! So we all got on another bus, waited for it to be reloaded, then left about 75 mins later than scheduled...

Yesterday it was 33 degrees when we arrived; today felt much the same. It's hot and sticky all the time, even when it's pouring. It rained almost continuously from midday today so it was fortunate we visited Choeung Ek, better known as the killing fields, this morning. We had eggs, toast, fresh fruit juice and melon for breakfast, organised bus tickets to Siem Reap for tomorrow, then got a tuk tuk for $8 return to take us to Choeung Ek. The journey took 45 mins ...