Cambodia - Siem Reap / Angkor Wat (19 - 23 April)

We spent a week here, snooping around some of the greatest ancient temples in the world. As it was the hottest part of the year in a country than is always hot, it meant that we had to buy a camp umbrella, which saved us from a daily roasting. Sadly, we became familiar with obscure descriptions of bits of temples from guidebooks, so that we now know what a lintel, a stupa, a gopura, a bas-relief, laterite and a quincunx are. Really useful...
The highlight of our time here was teaching some kids at a small English school. On the way to Siem Reap we were squashed in the back of an overloaded minibus and got talking to a Cambodian man who taught English. We helped him with his English and he invited us to his school. So, on two evenings, we stood in front of a small class of children who were beginning to learn English. I think they enjoyed the novelty of having us teach them and we really enjoyed teaching them. It might even have brought out the hidden teacher in one of us...

It was good to properly meet some Cambodian people, rather than just being another tourist. We got taken for dinner at the local market by the teacher, which was great. The daughter of our guest house owner also had a birthday party which we were invited to, which was a giggle (they have sparklers!) although they played the crazy frog tune too much.

Laos to Cambodia (16-18 April)

Managed to get transport over the border on the Laos equivalent of New Year's Day before our visa expired, though only as far as the unattractively named Stung Treng. Next day an 8 hours on the bus, mostly sat on plastic seats in the aisles whilst entertained with Jackie Chan movies and Cambodian stand-up comedy videos. At Kompong Cham overnight, had the luxury of a tv in our room: Rory watched football and James Bond films for so long that by the time we went out for dinner at 8.30 nearly all the eating places had closed, apart from some grubby places selling rice soup (like watery rice pudding) and offal curry (mmm...). Next day, all the buses were sold out but managed to get a seat in a minibus with about 25 people crammed into 12 spaces. We were lucky though, most minibuses had 20 on the roof as well: we only had 2.

Laos - Pakxe, Champasak & Si Phan Dom Islands (8 - 15 April)

Arrived in Pakxe after a great squished local bus journey, enlivened by a gecko running all around the bus and a great thunderstorm. Got a ride to the town centre on a jumbo (a pickup with a motorbike front) dangerously overloaded and with me and a few other men clinging to the back in the rainstorm. Pakxe was cool, despite there being no real sights (unless you count the collapsed tourism office) just lots of rain and decent curry.

Champasak: bailed out on our first guest house after 2 hours cos there was too many geckos, spiders, beetles and cockroaches in the room. Rancid. Saw some great old ruins the next day and chilled out by the beautiful river.

The Islands: Don Khong: cycled and motorbiked around the place and got pretty well toasted in the sun. Caz had a go on a motorbike and didn't cry and managed to achieve a stately 20mph on the deserted roads!

Don Khon & Don Det: stayed in a riverside shack for a few days. Despite having no electricity (except for a strip light in the bathroom which you turned on by wiring it up to a car battery) it did, crucially, have hammocks and was a seriously great place to chill out. It was Caz's birthday while we were here, so on her birthday we took a boat trip to (only just) see some rare dolphins which live in the Mekong river, saw a good waterfall and did some more random cycling round the islands. For my birthday we had dinner with 2 New Zealanders, an Australian turned Cambodian and another guy who happened to be sitting alone at a table that we wanted to join to ours so the poor guy had no choice. My birthday wish was for it to rain as it had been ridiculously hot, and the dream came true at 11.40pm when there was an awesome thunderstorm one night, as if the sky was lit up by a strobe light for a few hours with a heavy thunderstorm to accompany it!

Laos - Thakek & Savannakhet (5 - 7 April)

Stayed in quite a posh $9/night hotel on the banks of the Mekong. Rented a motorbike (always fun for Caz, holding on for grim death on the back) and went out into the hills to explore some great caves. The road was dusty & rutted and we got properly coated in brown dirt and had to wear a bandana over my face like a bandit or something. Savannakhet was not that good, just a crumbling old town. Had some nice cake, though.

Laos - Vientiane (2 - 4 April)

This has got to be the quietest capital city in the world: its quite big but really spaced out, with huge avenues, a riverfront and an Arc de Triomphe lookalike that was made out of concrete in the 60s and looks pretty ugly close up. Also visited some really holy temple that is a massive bunch of towers coated in gold (paint). Went to a really good curry house here (like an English one) while the Thai prime minister resigned on TV.

Saw a Communist-style military/police parade in the national stadium from our guest house balcony. Laos is kind of officially Communist, but the people are free and capitalism is flourishing. There's a few communist flags around but that's about it - no status or giant posters of the leaders and no police or military around. It feels more free than Thailand, where there are pictures of the king everywhere and people stand to attention when the national anthem is played at 6pm. The only problem is that there is only one political party here, so they need to sort out the democracy bit and then Laos will be sorted.

Laos - Luang Prabang (31 March - 1 April)

A lovely chilled out town where we found a really great little guest house that was cheap and provided free tea and coffee - a real treat! Saw a whole bunch of temples, lots of monks around here. Visited a really huge waterfall and spent a few hours climbing all around it and swimming in the pools under it. A long bus journey on to Vientiane took 10 hours winding through some brilliant mountain scenery.