Sorry I am hijacking this page, and the following section will be written in English - as Aurelie has stated, this is especially for the benefit of Raul, but to be honest it's actually for the benefit of all English speakers, and especially myself as my French is incomprehensible.

I arrived in Phnom Penh 2 weeks ago and enjoyed the shock of being back in Asia. The first few days was a conglomerate of catching up with Aurelie, seeing Phnom Penh and also getting a very quick digest of Cambodian history: yes, I know the basics, but I still felt completely ignorant to fully appreciate what became of this beautiful country over the past 50 years and before.

After visiting hard-hitting detention centres, killing fields and the Loas Embassy, it was time for something a little less stressful; so we went for a suicidal bike ride throughout Phnom Penh. I am over exaggerating here, it was quite exciting. I was also slowly beginning to realise I was going to struggle to keep up with the active life of Aurelie and also needed to calm down myself to enjoy my travels. In otherwords, I had to stop being "such a snob" as I was told. Unfortunately, I had to agree.

After Phnom Penh, we went to Battambang for one night before taking the picturesque boat ride to Siam Reap. Picturesque does not do this boat ride justice; it was beautiful, passing floating villages and ricefields either side.

Siam Reap gave us the chance to see Ankor Wat and other surrounding temples. After watching the sunrise (and poor Aurelie having to listen to me complain the whole way that "it was too early") we saw the Ankor temples, and unintentionally, Ankor Wat three times...

Incidently, the sunrise at Ankor was one of the highlights of my trip so far.

After a sleepy few days going through Kompon Cham and Strung Treng, we arrived in Laos. And when I mean arrived, I mean dumped at the border 30 km from the nearest town with no public transport. After walking 12km before finding a ride the rest of the way, we made it to Don Det within a few hours. Walking did not bother me too much, however when the monsoon rains came down for 6 of the 12km, to put it mildly, I was not too happy...

Nevertheless, Don Det was fantastic. This was heaven for me. I was on a tropical island with not much to do, and no electircity as well from for most of the day. After relaxing for a few days and going tubing* down the Mekong river, we have finally moved on to Pakse, viewing waterfalls...and now blogging.

*Tubing involves floating down a river in a giant doughnut tube...possible whilst drinking a beer...