"Soo uh suh dei"...hello from Cambodia. Been here for 4 days now, and have experienced a complete culture shock. Our first destination, Siem Reap, was home to the famous Angkor temples, over 2000 of them, covering 4/5 of the whole province itself!...They were huuuuuge! Managed to take an elephant ride up to the temples, and spent the first day, sun pouring down, temple touring, Indiana Jones style. The size of them was overwelming. We got a 2 day pass to the temples, and for the second day, we aimed to get there to see the sunrise over probably one of the most famous of them all...Angkor Wat. So 4:30am we all clambered onto the bus, kinda a race against time! Was definately worth it tho. The one thing about visiting all these temples, as it was obviously quite a tourist hotspot, were the number of half-dressed, skeletal children, that clung onto us everywhere we were pleading and begging for money. I have soon realised that this is commonplace for most of the main streets in the towns we have so far visited in Cambodia. That evening was eyeopening again. Tonle Sap Lake, which is a huuuuge lake slap bang in the mioddle of the country, is home to a floating village. The houses are literally built on wooden rafts and rubber tyres. The inhabitants travel everywhere by canoe-like boats, and again are very poor. As we struggled to get ours onto the lake, as its dry season and the lake had shrunken to about a sixth of it full size, it was surrounded suddenly by local, trying to board it, begging Öne dollar"in chorus. I didn't know where to look really, felt veryy uncomfortable, but we had been told not to give them any money by our leader. Apparently we will only be encorouaging this way of life and not really helping in the long term as öne dollar"doesn't get them very far at all. We reached the floating restaurant, and sat drinking Angkor beer until the sun set over the village. It was so hard to believe that this was actually a way of life for them all.

The last couple of days have involved pretty lopng bus journeys on the public buses, which are really not the most comfortable forms of transport! After arriving at our stop over hotel yesterday afternoon in a small French-influenced town called Kompong Cham, we took a cylco tour of the city...3 hrs long! We crossed over to a small island off the bay, by a bamboo bridge, which didn't look at alllll safe, and visited a local women there. She owned 2 homes, next to each other, which housed 50 relatives! We also passed a local school. This was when the heavens opened!...which I have had to get used to quite a bit out here...one minute it's absolutely sweltering, the next a complete downpour. So, we took shelter in the school. The children loved us...whether it was my blonde hair, or the fact i was very'long', I managed to make a little group of new friends! I taught them all about my family and, somehow they managed to get me to sing them the ABC song all on my own...can only think it must have been painful for them to listen to! We had the most amazing dinner last night, at another locals house. They put on a buffet banquet, which was the best meal I think all of us have had since we have been here. We all sat in a huge circle on the floor, and when we thought we were done they brought out the dessert...DEEP FRIED TARANTULA! Closing my eyes...it was mind over matter...but I had it! Tastes like chicken!

Our long bus journey today takes us to our homestay in Chambok, where all we have been told is there is one room, eleven of us, no electricity, no running water, no proper toilet....think it's gonna be an interesting night ahead! Oh well as of tomorrow we will be resting on tropical beaches for 3 days, so it could be worse...just!