After a bit to eat at the hotel it was time to say goodbye to Cambodia and move onto Laos. Our original itinerary had is travelling up through Cambodia by bus, crossing the border and visiting various places in Southern Laos before arriving in the capital Vientiane. After doing so many bus miles in Peru, we decided to scrap this itinerary completely and fly to the Northern part of Laos, to Luang Prabang, so we could spend our time doing stuff. T It was whilst we sat in the airport, bags checked through, that we remembered we needed our passport photographs for the Laos entry visa. Well, there was nothing to be done but wing it. We needn't have worried, they took our $30 per person and didn't even ask for the pic. Luang Prabang is ... read more

Feeling a lot better when I woke so today is the day we visit Angkor Wat. A tropical storm started just before we left so the 30 minute ride in the tuk tuk was more of an adventure. Built about 800 years ago this collection of temples takes up 400 square kilometres and was a city of 1 million people at a time when London was just 50,000 people. It was lost to the jungle and forgotten about and was rediscovered by the French in 1860. After buying our entry passes we first went to the Angkor Wat temple itself. It has the scale of the pyramids but with much greater levels of intricacy and decoration and it was in surprisingly. The rain meant that there were far fewer visitors than normal and we quite enjoyed ... read more

We hired a guide, Nicky, again for a couple of hours, as we are leaving after lunch to head North East to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat. The tuk tuk is a great mode of transport as its slow, shaded and the open sides means that you have a cooling wind, can smell and hear things that would be lost in a car and you can also interact more with the locals as you go along. First we visited an old train known as the 'bamboo train'. We all had imagined it was a train where the carriages were made of bamboo. Instead it was pairs of train wheels, a metal base, woven bamboo co wrong and a patterned throw. It was built by the French when this area was Indo China and ... read more

We finished off a great day with a visit to the circus. Set up in 1994 to help school children deal with the horrors of the Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, it's a form of play therapy. Hat was delighted as shed claim in Zindonesia that she'd never been to a circus, even though we reminded her of at least four circus visits in the UK. It was dark when we arrived and the tent was open sided, so we were glad that we'd put insect repellent on. The first act was traditional Cambodian dancers, very graceful and Hat was entranced. The second act was the acrobats and they were very strong and talented. It reminded Ed of Parkour, so he was all in.... read more

We're moving onto Battambang today. It's the King's birthday, so the number of mini buses was reduced and the first one available was 2.30. The travelling was more rugged than we've had before. A bumpy road, some wilder driving techniques, cramped and a bit too hot. The kids were great again and I smiled to myself when Ed said 'it's only a five hour journey' in quite a nonchalant voice. The countryside has changed from both Indonesia and Malaysua. It's now drier and the bare earth is orange, it looks more like Africa. It could be that we're entering the fifty season here and that it happens earlier here than in the southern countries. Most of the land beside the road is farmland and there wasn't a paddy field in site. We also noticed that all ... read more