We went to the floating village yesterday afternoon as we were risking temple burnout! It was really good. We boarded a boat that cruised along the Tonle Sap Lake (largest lake in SE Asia) and took us to the floating village. At this time of the year the village is quite close to Siem Reap as the water is high but at other times of the year it is much further out. The village is made up of a whole series of floating houses and other buildings. There was a floating school and even a floating pig farm! A lot of [View Full Entry]

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Temples, temples, temples... We have just spent the last 2 days exploring the temples of Angkor. They were fantastic, so worth coming to see. There are actually over 100 temples spread over quite a large area. They are both Buddhist and Hindu so there is a mixture of carving and styles. We obviously only saw a small fraction of what was there. You can't see them all or else you would end up with serious temple burn out! On our first day we visited Angkor Thom which was actually the last city of the Khmer empire. It contains lots of temples [View Full Entry]

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Today we travelled from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia. The first few hundred kms to the boarder was on nice tarmaced road so we sailed along and it only took us a few hours. Once we got to the boarder it was a different story. The boarder crossing in itself was an experience and a half! It was very hot and dusty and there were loads of people milling around. When we got there we had to have all our bags loaded onto a cart which some little guy got to pull around for us. It must have a weighed [View Full Entry]

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Last day in Bangkok today. We have been here since Tuesday so we have been able to fit lots of sight seeing in. Aside from a day trip to Ayuthaya we have been in the city the whole time. It has been amazing. We have visited lots of temples and seen so much. We have also experienced lots of weather. Yesterday it rained so much that all the streets were flooded! It was really deep in places including the road the hotel was on. You could not leave unless you were prepared to wade through it! It all drained away in [View Full Entry]

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Went to Ayuthaya today which was great. We decided to splash out and chartered a taxi (it is all so cheap) as we thought it would cut out a lot of hassle. I think it was well worth it as our crazy, but nice, taxi drive Mr Tee dropped us off right outside each site and then waited until we were ready before driving us to the next sight in his air-conditioned taxi. The air conditioning aspect is of great importance here or else we would have boiled to death. It was so hot today (no rain) We visited about 5 [View Full Entry]

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Made it to Singapore on Sunday morning after a very long flight from London. Despite the fact that it was 7:30 am when we arrived it was already 26oC! It never seems to get cold here. It is hot late at night and when we woke up this morning there was condensation on the outside of the window! Spent the last 2 days exploring the city taking in some places we remembered from our last visit plus a few new places. One of the coolest building we visited was the Esplanade on the bay. It is this durian fruit inspired building [View Full Entry]

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We have made it to Bangkok and as the title suggests it is definitely crazy! There are people trying to sell you stuff everywhere although they don't really hassle you. The suit sellers particularly seem to like the look of Tim! He can't seem to pass in front of their shops without someone leaping out and saying "suit sir?" Tim says that it is because he does not look like all the grungy backpackers! Everything here is so cheap. The internet is only 50p an hour, most main meals are about 1.50 (no pounds signs on this keyboard!) and you can [View Full Entry]

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Less than 2 weeks to go. 10 days to be precise. Starting to get really excited. Am beginning to realise that there is rather a lot of things that need to be done before then. I think (or hope) that we have bought everything that we need. We have had the injections. I had to have 3 but Tim only had to have 2! This seems grossly unfair. It was something to do with one of his being a triple vaccine. Anyway we are now covered for polio, tetanus, diphtheria, typhoid and hepatitis A. We also got the malaria tablets. Wow, [View Full Entry]

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Just in case I have not bored you with the details in person I thought I should write down where we are actually going. We have bought a Great Escapade round-the-world ticket. We are allowed to travel up to 29,000 miles so decided to get our monies worth and chose a route that was over 28,000 miles! The flights are London - Singapore, Singapore - Bangkok, Hanoi - Christchurch (via Singapore), Auckland - Fiji, Fiji - Rarotonga, Rarotonga - LA, LA - London. All of this for £924 plus tax - bargain! We have got a couple of days in Singapore [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to my travel blog! I am going to try and keep this up when I am away so you can all read about what I am up to. Hopefully I will be able to download some pictures too. There is now only 3 months and 1 day to go before we leave (not that I'm counting!) and I am getting really excited. I know the summer is going to drag but at least when everyone is depressed in November we will be on our way. Keep buying stuff to take with me which means that my rucksac is bound to [View Full Entry]

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