Still in recovery, but alive and kicking. Detox in failure.

We couldn't face the 11 hour bus trip from Sihanoukville so decided to risk our lives by catching an old Russian Antonov-24 (see pic) owned by the rather comically named PMT Air. The UN bans their personnel from flying with them due to an unfortunate incident where the landing gear fell off, but we comforted ourselves with the fact that no one had actually died in the event.

Luckily our flight was as smooth as it could have been in an airoplane old enough to be my Grandfather and the shiny new Sihanoukville International Airport, celebrating its second month of existence was a pleasure. It must have been what flying was like 50 years ago, when the staff treated one as a customer in a 5 * Hotel rather than as cattle about to be sent to market.



Managed to pick up a bug and spent a good 36 hrs enjoying a temperature of around 38.4 (we googled it - it counts as a temp!), nausea and the runs. Whilst I was hardly dying, this did put a spanner in the works of the partying. I imagine my continual failure at enforcing my own detox had finally pissed off the powers that be.

Unfortunately on our first night in Siem Reap we met up with the Saffer boys again and although I started out saying ''only one soft drink and then home for me'', I ended the evening sometime in the wee hours saying ''let's have another vodka bucket and another round of tequilas''... Hangover was severe today, so much so that I am ashamed to say we had to miss out on the 1st of only 2 days seeing the Angkor Temple Complex. Again we hang our heads in shame, the boys are off to Thailand now so we should be able to go back to our usual mature ways.

I started antibiotics today because as you can imagine the sickness didn't respond very well to intoxication therapy.

To atone for our sins of last night, we are rising at 5am tomorrow to see the sunrise over the temples. We have already arranged a driver so that we can't bail as we are sure to want to when the alarm goes at 4.30am!



Check our our initial Siem Reap Pics
More to follow once we've been to Angkor - promise