1st time around the world! by Laura_Foster

Looking back, my time in Bangkok seems like a blur of one great night out on Khao San road shortly followed by a severe hangover and general illness from a dodgy tum.

The spectacularly bad 24 hour hangover was the low point, but I really enjoyed watching some Muay Thai (thai boxing) in a stadium and sitting in the cheap seats watching the locals as much as the match, frantically and noisily place bets. The ping pong show was downright wrong and I will never subject myself to one again! We were royally ripped off and I nearly had a full blown arguement with one rude ping pong lady demanding a tip from me.

We did do one day of sightseeing and took a river express boat to the Grand Palace and Wat Po. At the latter we saw HRH Princess Sri Rasmi (who is married to the Thai crowned prince) exiting a building near the temple with a procession of guards and stern looking military men. Some of the soldiers were wearing what looked like beefeater hats although they weren't furry (the hats that is).

After BKK we made our way to Cambodia. It was a 7 hour train journey, then a tuk tuk to get our Cambodian visa sorted and then a walk over the border into Cambodia. It was our first border crossing and it went pretty smoothly, a bit of an odd experience with lots of standing in line and official looking stamps to add to my passport.

The difference between Thailand and Cambodia was apparent immediately.  The little I saw of Thailand seemed to be fairly clean, there always seemed to be someone sweeping the streets. Once across the border the concrete roads disappered and were replaced with dirt packed red roads with many a pot hole and rubbish strewn in the roads. Kids were running around with nothing on there bottom halves and once out of the border town of Poipet the landscape was rice fields as far as the eye could see.

The road to Siem Reap, the base for the temples of Angkor, was a vey bumpy 4 hours away by share taxi. We stayed at a lovely hostel called Earthwalkers and hired a tuk tuk for 2 days to take us around the temples.The most famous temple is Angkor Wat and although the scale was impressive I was personally more taken by Ta Prohm. Nature was definitely winning against the temple, and the roots of ancient trees had intertwined with walls and sent them crumbling down. This was where Tomb Raider and Two Brothers were filmed apparently.

As well as visiting many a temple, we also visitied the Cambodia Landmine Museum which was a really thought provoking and touching place. The museum was set up by a former child soldier of the Khmer Rouge, who as well as being forced to fight , also became proficient at laying landmines. After the Khmer Rouge's downfall he began to deactivate landmines on his own and later set up a museum and orphanage to help child amputees and children from poor families for a better start in life.

After Angkor we caught a boat to Battambang across the Tonle Sap lake. I wasn't expecting to see much except a few birds, but we saw loads of fisherman, floating villages and whole communities built on stilts. We stopped off at a 'services'  - a stilted shop and the loo was a square hole cut out from a sheet of wood which was positioned above the lake! It was the oddest squat toilet I've experienced so far.

Battambang was a quiet riverside town and we decided to head out to see a little of rural life on the back of a motorbike. We visited some caves at Phnom Sampeau which are situated in a limestone cliff and were used as a prison and slaughter chamber by the Khmer Rouge. The human remains found in 3 caves were displayed in the cave we visited, which was a chilling site in the errie caves. According to our guide around 10,000 around just the caves were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge.

At the moment we are in Phnom Penh and are going out to see the sights tomorrow.

Its nearly been a month of travelling for me and its flown by! Lots of love to everyone back home, feel free to message me :) xx