We are now back in Bangkok - the flight (on a jet - yay!!) lasted just 40 minutes, even I have to agree it was better than the 12 hour bus/car/truck/tuk-tuk/moto/tricycle/penny farthing combo. We are back in our old faithful guesthouse - Suk 11 and are in the process of sorting a parcel back to the UK - or maybe 2. Yup fleeces and thermals are going back along with other assorted crap.

After calling both sets of parents (and talking to my dog down the phone - that was surreal, talking to an animal (!!) 7,000 miles away whilst sitting in an internet cafe. Good job noone spoke English as they'd have thought I was mad...) we went out last night and stayed in our fave bar in Siem Reap (to eat and drink) and met an American (Greg) currently living just outside of Shanghai. He was a really good guy and we've arranged to meet him on our China leg in a couple of months.

One thing to note is that we have had a bit of feedback that we seem to spend all our times in bars - well we do but over here the only places you can get food is in the bars, and to be honest we invariably have a sprite/coke anyway...

Mike, our American friend, arrives late tonight so we are hoping to catch up with him at breakfast. We have done some more washing and even bought some more underwear in M & S in BKK!!!

The current plan for the next few weeks is undecided but I think we are going to head south to Southern Thailand and Malaysia for some decent diving, and better sun tan...after that we will probably fly from BKK to Ho Chi Minh City (what use to be Saigon - Vietnam) on or around 11/3 (that's when our Vietnam visa starts). We then figure we'll be in Vietnam around 2 weeks before heading up into China via the train (Chinese Visa still to get in Hanoi). After a month or so we'll then come back down via Gansu province (where Gazza is playing now... - we're going to watch him play and hopefully see him out and about on the town...not sure if there are any kebab houses though...) and overland into Laos and through Laos into Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand. We will then head down into Malaysia/Singapore but do the cities rather than the beaches. This should take us to about end of May/start of June by which time it'll be time to move on to Aus. This might be the time that Rachel, Jennifer's sister comes out to join us for a bit as she's got friends in that part of Asia.

When we hit Aus we're going to hook up with a guy we met from Middlesboro' who is planning to work in the top ski resort as a liftie or instructor and he says he'll get us some decent deals. We are also going to meet up with one of my ex-work colleagues in Sydney. My brother (Pat) will also be coming out to Aus or NZ at some point as well although he has got to be best man at a wedding on July 29th so we're not sure when yet. We're going to do all the normal Aus stuff - barrier reef, Uluru et al...and then hit NZ where we're going boarding again and meeting up with a family friend on the South Island (Christchurch). We will probably hire a car in NZ.

That's about as far as we can see at the moment, of course this may change tonight as we're sitting down with our faithful lonely planets and looking at alternative routes...

Hope you're enjoying the snow, I am kind of missing the English weather - it's much more humid here in BKK than Cambodia and it feels just like we're going to have one hell of a storm (although I don't think there's one forecast). We have got 3 nights here and will probably go to a couple of markets as they are still celebrating the Chinese New Year and there as some great sounding stalls (never thought I'd say that...)

Off to the bar...not really...off to get some water - it's so hot here!!!

D & J