The first two weeks have flown by. We spent 2 days in Bangkok staying with the Kirkwoods. My first night in Asia involved a truely Thai welcome of take away pizza and American Idol with Amy and Michael! Anyway perhaps a more true to life version of Bangkok was seen the following day when we headed over to the weekend market which lived up to all expectations; streets upon streets of fake handbags and Beer related tops.

It was a fleeting visit as we are going to explore Bankgkok a bit more fully when we return for our flight home so after a good couple of days there we headed south to the island of Koh Chang. Our 5 day stay here was amazing. I must admit our cultural exploraion was limited to going to the beach!! However, we did manage to go Elephant riding one day which was a lot of fun. We spent an hour or so trekking through the forest before the elephants had their 'saddles' removed and we went swimming with them in the river! Sas thought she was supposed to stay on the elephant whilst it was in the water but was thrown off immediately when the mahoot turned the elephant into a bucking bronco with a few commands.

After Koh Chang we moved on to Cambodia. We started off in SIem Reap in order to do Angkor Wat. Apart from the border crossing which was a bit hectic, Cambodia is not as we expected at all. We were told over and over that it would be far less developed than Thailand and that we would definitely notice a difference but from what we have seen it is a really charming place. Angkor Wat was spectacular, we went for sunset the night before and then up again for (a very cloudy) sunrise. We had a really memorable day seeing not only Angkor Wat but also the surrounding temples of Angkor Thom and Ta Phrom.

From there it was onto Phnom Penh where we spent just one night in order to get the bus down to Sihanoukville which is where we are now. Sihanoukville is the Cambodian equivalent of the Thai islands (except not an island) and we are loving some more time at the beach. We have even bumped into a few Marlborough friends.

We have a few days here and then it is back to Phnom Penh to see the Killing Fields and then another border crossing into Vietnam.

Hope you are all well xxx