Hello from the Philippines!

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As Tim is studying in a classroom right now (diving stuff) I thought i'd give a little update as to our whereabouts over the last few weeks...

Following on from our little island in south Vietnam we took a bus to Cambodia to Phnom Penh and then headed 6 hours north to Siem Reep to see one of the wonders of the world apparently, i'll admit I had never heard of Ankor Wat.....but I have now and it was well worth the trip. We got up to see the main temple at sunrise (which is supposed to be amazing) but we got a particularly cloudy morning so there wasn't really a sunrise to speak of, but we got some great photos of the temples nonetheless. Other than temples we did a cooking class in Phnom Penh, where we cooked their local dish of fish amok, which is a coconut fish curry in a banana leaf, and spring rolls. (Spring roll parties when we get home by the way!) You'll see from the pictures that my amok looked great...but as Tim tried to put his on the plate it broke apart a bit, still tasted good though!

We got a flight back to Vietnam after a week in Cambodia, unfortunately we were running out of time, so we had a few days in Hanoi, which is vastly different to Saigon, with some great places to eat. We spent our time wandering the streets in the old quarter, and buying black market copies of lonely planets. With only about a week to go before our flight we decided the last place to go was Hoi An which turned out to be our favourite place, with even more amazing food, (Tim particularly like the local Cao Lou and the wantons) Not sure if our photos will do it justice but the place was like a living museum, old streets with old houses and every other shop a tailors.....some great shopping was had.

Next up was a brief overnighter in Singapore, made it to the botanic gardens which are just fantastic, and we seem to have taken a lot of photos in the orchid garden, really worth the trip in the short time we had.

Now we are in the Philippines, we spent about 4 days in Manila, which unfortunately is pretty grim, but our hostel was great, and right now we're on Mindoro in Sabang where there is some great diving to be had and a lot of reading and chilling out for me. Tim is completing his open water certificate.

We've got about 10 days before we head to chilly Melbourne, for which i'm going to need shoes, gloves, a scarf and a coat......also it concludes our time in Asia where things are cheap, relaxed and hot. But looking forward to seeing some friends, even though the price of beer frightens us..

till then, love Emma and Tim

(by the way just as Tim went to his diving place a dead rat just fell from the building above missing his head by about an inch...i'm still laughing at the look on his face)

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