Dear All

This is not proving so easy. We are in Siem Reap now which is the town near Angkor Wat. The hotel is nice enough and we are fine but the journey here was not across the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia but along the road.in a minibus. Also we were not escorted to the wat today and our guide has gone back to Phnom Penh. I wonder what tomorrow will bring! It is two days since I last wrote and we are in a different country. This is Cambodia an d a very different place from Laos although the weather is still hot and wet and they still eat rice! In fact it’s white lowland rice here and not much sticky rice, so even that is different.

The highlight of today might be said to be eating a tarantula! Actually I bought a whole one but only managed a leg., and that was only because Lisa had had one already and egged me on. Peter wasn’t so brave. We had stopped in our minibus to use the loo and there were lots of people selling food by the wayside, among the goodies were trays of these things, more of grasshoppers of enormous size, River crabs, and sugar cane ready prepared.

The journey from Phnom Penh taday took 5 1/2 hours and was a little hairy if you thought about it so I read and tried to take pictures of the changing panorama unfolding around us. Since then we have arrived at the Salina hotel, had a swim in their lovely pool, had a sleep as we were up to 1pm last night watching the football, and Peter has done some washing. Actually that is only a bit as we took two kilos down the road to a lady who will wash it for us for $US2. We hope to pick it all up tomorrow.

The journey into Cambodia was actually uneventful. It was a jet and Vietnam Airlines. We were shown the palace and national museum in Phnom Penh but then asked to be shown the school then concentration camp and torture chamber/genocide centre of Pol Pot's regime 30 years ago. A rather harrowing experience that proved but very much part of the whole which has made this country what it is. It is very poor but with collosal drive.

Tomorrow at 8.30am we are to meet our new guide who will show us this huge complex 300 sq. Km. of it! over 2 days.

Tell you more later.

Lots of love to you all

Ruth and Peter