Not long after arriving in Siem Reap we were loaded on the bust and taken to our first temple to watch the sunset. After a 20 minute walk to the top of a hill it became apparent that sunsets are a popular pastime in Siem Reap. There was easily 1000 people standing on anything they could to get a better view of what admittedly was an amazing sunset.

I wish I could say the same about the sunrise over the main Angkor Wat temple which we had to be up at 4am to watch along with a hell of a lot more tourists. The whole temple complex (of which there are over 100) feels a little like a theme park although I guess if you go to some of the smaller less popular temples you’d have a lot more of a personal experience. Most of us went on a balloon ride that looked a lot cooler from the temples than it actually was. You stand inside a large circular cage attached to a helium balloon and then a winch lets you up to about 200 meters high and then straight back down again. It cost $15(US) each, but only lasted about 10 minutes. We spent the rest of the day touring round more temple ruins which were all very interesting, but after 5 or 6 hours I have to admit that I got a little boarded.

We did stop off at a museum setup by a former Khmer Rouge child Soldier who defected to the Vietnamese army and now spends all his time detecting and disarming landmines, something he does for free as opposed to the UN that charges $5,000 per mine.
That night we headed to Bar Street (guess why it’s called that) and found a Mexican restaurant that sold cocktails for $2. Three tequila sunrises, three margaritas and an argument about the US/UK/Australian healthcare systems later we called it a night and took a tuck-tuck back to the hotel.

There were a few sore heads the next morning as we headed out to our last temple, Ta Prohm – the one used in the movie Tomb Raider. It’s really overgrown and atmospheric, but unfortunately overrun by Japanese and Korean tourists, all more interested in Angelina Jolie than the temple. Looking back, I was really grumpy that morning, maybe I had more of a hangover than I thought.
We also went for a little boat trip on the Tonle Sap Lake the biggest lake in Asia. There are an entire floating village of Vietnamese people. When I say floating village I mean that everything is on the water, there’s a floating hospital, church, shops and cafes. I made friends with a little kid who took great delight in scaring Frank, the German guy on the tour with a crayfish he had picked up. On the way back we saw freshly skinned rainbow snakes hanging in the sun to dry, tasty.

On our last evening we went for dinner with a family who where friends of our guide. We were collected by a pickup truck with seats along the back and taken to a tiny little suburb of Siem Reap where we were treated to a banquet followed by games and dancing with all the kids in the village.

Next stop Battambang

Kyoto’s, home to Temples, Shrines, Gisha’s, Parks, blah, blah, blah. When I arrived in kyoto I only had one thing on my mind: Monkeys. There is a monkey sanctuary/park in the Arishiyama area of town. It takes about 20 minutes to climb up a quite a steep hill to the park. At the top of the hill you get ushered into the resting area where there is a cage on one side, from which you can feed the monkeys, but you can also go outside and wonder amongst them. I think I stayed there a bit too long, a couple of them came right up to my leg a started grooming each other.

I spent a couple of hours wondering around the gardens of the Tenryuji Temple which was quite nice, but I suspect that it’s quite similar to the hundreds of other temples that are found throughout Kyoto. I also went down to the Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine which is a series of small temples linked together with pathways which are lined with thousands of Torii (the red gate things). I got a bit lost wondering around and once it was dark the shrines got a little bit spooky.

I lso spent a day in a city called Nara which apparently was Japan’s first real capital (back in 710). It has a large temple and park complex which is inhabited with hundreds of wild deer that have lost their fear of humans and will happily walk up to you (especially if you have handful of crackers that the street vendors sell). Alson in Nara is Todai-Ji, which is a temple that houses the Daibutsu-den Hall, the largest wooden building in the world. Inside is a 15m high Bronze Buddha (I’m about as big as one of it’s fingers). The place was packed with school kids and tourists, but I think it’s funny how people go to places like this and never seem to take their eyes away from the the viewfinder of their cameras. Maybe I’m a little guilty of that as well, but I try to put my camera away for a bit every time I visit somewhere.

I took most of today off to do washing etc. and also to travel down to Hiroshima which is about 2 hours south-west by bullet train. I’m going to have a look around the A-Bomb museum and Peace Gardens tomorrow and possibly go down to Miyajima.

I’m not sure how the time difference works out, but I left Seattle on the scariest bus ride of all time in the early hours of Monday morning and arrived in Tokyo very late on Tuesday night in a state that would put a George Romero zombie to shame.

After a really good nights sleep and trying to work out how to use the toilet, I set off for a look around the neighborhood. I’m staying in an area of Tokyo called Asakusa. There is a huge temple just up the road and it’s surrounded by a market, a really cute little garden (complete with fish pond) and a maze of little store fronts selling all sorts of weird food and trinkets.

I was sharing a room with 3 Swedes: Gus, Linda and Robert who turned out to be great fun. Gus was very eccentrict but funny, he always wears a top hat when he’s out. Linda and Robert where a little more reserved, but still great fun. They invited me to join them out for the night to the Shibuya area of the city. It’s one of the more young and trendy areas of town which is probably most famous for a crossroads that was used in Lost in Translation. We went to a noodle bar for dinner and ate for about £3 each. The food I’ve tried so far in Japan hasn’t been too great, but I’m defiantly open to trying anything new and maybe I’ve just been going to the wrong places. I’ve made myself a promise that I’m going to eat at least half of everything I buy, no matter how bad it tastes.

We also went to a Manga internet cafe, which are littered all over Tokyo. It costs around £2 for an hour’s use of a private cubical in which you get a PC and comfy chair and you also have access to a very comprehensive library of Manga books and DVD’s. There is also bring food and drink to your cubical on request. Apparently a lot of people use them to stay in over night if they miss the last train home, although it did seem a bit seedy and Linda said that the guy in the cubical next to her was “making himself very comfortable” whatever that means to a Swedish.

I’ve also spent a day visiting the Ginza area which is full of designer shops and department stores but not really my scene and the Akhiabara (aka electric town) area which was much more to my liking. There is streets and streets of gadget shops (including a massive 7 storey gadget have called Yodobashi Camera) and an unusual amount of “adult” stores and quite often the 2 merge and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by vibrators.

I’ve started getting the hang of some of the customs , bowing at people and taking your shoes off at the door are the 2 biggest ones. I’m also really worried about unwittingly offending someone. I know it’s really bad manors to blow your nose in public (which doesn’t help when I’ve got the beginnings of a cold and there must be a stack of others that I don’t know about. If anyone’s got any ideas, let me know.

The Japanese people are really friendly, and always putting themselves out to help you out. I really wanted to go to the Studio Gibli museum and the girl on reception at the hostel wrote me a note in japanese saying “please can you help me buy a ticket” with all the information on I needed to take to take to the supermarket which has ticket machines within it. Unfortunately it turns out the the museum is fully booked the whole time I’m in Japan, but I was really impressed by the good nature of everyone.

I caught the Shinkansen “Bullet” train to Kyoto today it was really smooth and apparently goes at 285 km/h but on the inside it was pretty much like any other train.