Photos! and more photos! Vietnam and Cambodia

So here's a few of my holiday photos. Thought I'd post them here, just to see if the slide show thing works. Enjoy!

Continued around the bend...

All Templed Out...

And the final email from Cambodia...

Well,the sunrise over Angkor Wat was a bit of a washout. It is the wet season, so there are plenty of clouds hanging around. Basically the sun rose into a cloud bank, with very few colours or spectacular effects. It just got gradually lighter, and not much else. Still, it was worth a try I guess...We wont be trying it tomorrow,though - once was enough!

For the rest of today we toured a few more temples. I've got temple fatigue now. There seems to be o end of them after a while, and they begin to look all the same. They're all beautiful in their own way, but trying to cram them into two days is way too much. We managed to see all the main temples, including the one where the movie Tomb Raider was shot. There are no signs pointing it out, but the tour guides don't let you miss any of the important movie sites !

After that, it was just a final trip around the markets looking for souvenirs, then a quick swim in the hotel pool. That part of the day was great. I can always spend time by the pool, or the beach... but after two days of solid walking around temples and jungle it was nice just to kick back for an hour or so.

It's not all relaxation and natural beauty though. At every temple entrance there were bands of musicians playing. They are all victims of land mines, and make a living selling CDs of their music to tourists. There are lots of beggars around with missing limbs too - we saw one boy about 16 working in one of the markets and he had two false feet. It was a shock to see that as he was walking quite normally, until you looked down at them. They're still working at clearing landmines from all across the country (and in Vietnam too) and wont be finished for years yet. The markets are full of books about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot - the fighting wasn't all that long ago. It's all pretty sad - like I said earlier, this part of the world has had a very rough time over the last 50-100 years. And they're all still incredibly poor. I spent $15 tonight on dinner - the average monthly wage is $40. Anyway...

So the trip is almost over. Tomorrow morning we head for the airport and a flight to Kuala Lumpur. Then on Friday night we're on a plane home... not looking forward to getting home. Maybe I'll just take a plane and head on somewhere else...

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Cambodia - Angkor Wat

From the first part of our stop in Cambodia...


Just a quick one tonight, as it's late and I want to go to bed. we're off to see the
sunrise over Angkor Wat in the morning, starting from the hotel at 5am... not my idea of agood time to get out of bed while I'm on holiday! But it should be worth it, I think.

Anyway, we're in Cambodia now. We're in Siem Reap, which is the town just next to
the whole Angkor Wat area. We spent today exploring some of the temples. We'll check out a few more tomorrow before heading off on Thursday. This place is just amazing. Its hard to believe they carved this huge temple complext out of the jungle over 1000 years ago. We''ve all taken lots of photos, of course, but they just don't give you the whole picture.

They also don't give you the heat, and the humidity. I hate the humidity - it just
drains me completely after a while. And we've been walking all day today, climbing over stone temples out in the sun.

The final few days of Vietnam were great, too. The two day on the beach at Mui Ne were the best - not too hot or wet, and we just sat by the pool for most of our time there. That's more like a holiday. The Mekong Delta was hot, wet and sticky - interesting, but I'm in no hurry to go back there.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Just a few more days until we head home - wish I could extend
the trip another week or two.

Continued around the bend...