Bad things have stopped happening to me now (touch wood) and besides what I wrote about things have been good. So I had the camera and money stolen and that night I ended up being on the phone to my bank and then in a Hong Kong police station till 5am. I told the officer about the camera and she wrote up the incident and when I told her there was something else too she said "Oh for f*** sake" - great service! I had to leave early the next morning, took a boat to Macau, then a bus to the airport. The following flight was the one which had to make the emergency landing. Then I was told I couldn't get my connecting flight.

So I got an airport bus to the main place people go in Bangkok, Khao San Road, as featured in 'The Beach.' On the bus I met a Japanese man who had been to Bangkok many times and took me to a guesthouse who knew called Kik Kik Kik (Cheap Cheap Cheap in Thai) where I ended up staying. He actually has an apartment in Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand which he invited me to but I don't think I'll be going. Walked up and down Khao San that evening taking everything in, looking at the market stalls and eating cheap candy floss!

The next day I took a bus to the MBK, a shopping arcade. It's MASSIVE, has 6 floors and a floor with food, games arcade, bowling, cinema etc. Shopped around for a new camera. Also found a Marks and Spencers where I topped up on Percy Pigs, my favourite! On the bus on the way back I couldn't work out where to get off so was looking at a map. After a while someone asked where I was going and I said Khao San Road and they told me to follow them, which I did. We got off the bus and started chatting and it turned out she was just going to Khao San on her own so we went together and had dinner then some drinks.

Can't remember the order of things for my few days in Bangkok so I'll just write what we did. I saw Pad (girl from bus) every day as she was on holiday from her job for a week. We went to Chatuchak Market, the largest weekend market in the world with over 9000 individual stalls. Needless to say, it's massive! Also went to Lumphini Park. It's really nice there; a big lake with turtles swimming in it! Fountains and boat for hire. And at 6pm every day tens, hundreds of people gather to dance. They put on 10 year old English songs remixed by Thai people at full volume and do the funniest dances, it's hilarious! We went back to the MBK on my last day and I bought a new camera, the Canon IXUS 60. I love it, it takes really good pictures :-) Though I've only just got a case for it and in the one day I used it without a case I got a few little scratches on it which is majorly annoying.

We went out every evening, either to a place called Silk Bar or the Gullivers Travellers Bar. This was the place to be! About 50/50 mix of Asian/Western people but everyone just had a good time and talked to whoever! They did play music repetitively night by night though. And one night we only went for half an hour in which time they played one song twice, and 3/4 Black Eyed Peas songs. At 1am it's illegal to serve alcohol so most bars shut then. A few bars just serve illegally on the sly, otherwise theres a street where people put out mats on the pavements, then 2 vans sell alcohol and at the cheapest prices in town! I don't know why I'm about to tell this story as I know certain family members will have heart attacks...

One night we were there talking to 2 English people and a German. A Thai guy came over and was talking to the German, I wasn't paying attention to the conversation but they were joking around until the Thai guy took something the wrong way and started kicking and hitting the German. The people selling the alcohol came over and got rid of him as they don't want their customers scared away. 20 minutes later the Thai came back on a moped, with a baseball bat. He started hitting the German who tried to run away, but the Thai caught up with him and hit him more. The van people had to stop him again, but it was really bad. A lot of people ran away/left; I stayed out of the way until the Thai left then went over to help the German guy. His head was cracked open, his nose was broken, both his arms and his wrist and ribs were broken, he'd really been beaten. I helped him into a hotel lobby and helped get ice, tissue, clean up the wounds, crack bone into place etc. While we were doing this the police arrived. They didn't help the German though, just talked to the van people. Then the Thai came back again, this time with a knife and slashed one of the van people in the face. The police didn't do anything as they knew the Thai guy, so he just rode away. The law is messed up.

After 4/5 days I left Bangkok to Cambodia. Got my visa at the border, the journey took 14 hours by bus and was crap. The bumpiest roads I've ever come accross throughout the whole of Cambodia. The bus was really really sticky, completely full to the extent the bags were in the aisle, you couldn't move an inch. Met two Singaporeans on the way though, when we arrived the bus took us to their own guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. This way they expect a lot of people to stay there but hardly anyone from the bus did. We got a tuk-tuk to the main town area and found a decent enough guesthouse straight away for US$6 for all 3 of us per night (1 pound each). At the border we were told it was the best exchange rate, but Ihad heard stories about money changing scams at the border so just changed a few pounds for food. One girl changed about 200 pounds; she's going to be gutted as it was a bad rate at the border.

Although the currency here is Riel, everything pretty much works in US Dollars. They just give Riel as small change in stead on Cents as coins aren't used here, it's a bit odd! Today I went to Angkor Wat, the largest temple site in the world. It was pretty amazing. We woke at 4.30am to go and see the sunset, definately worth it especially as there was a double rainbow! We had a tuk-tuk driver for $8 for the whole day who drove us between the temples as each is several km apart. We walked so many km anyway though within the temples, and had to climb a lot of steep steps but it was fun! I'm off to Phnom Phen with the Singaporeans tomorrow afternoon after a visit to the floating market in the morning so I'll write next from there!