Our day trips included a walk to Hyde Park, Darling Harbour, a visit to see the Sydney Opera House, a lazy half day in the botanical gardens – Nicola managed to lie in chewing gum and had to cut it out of her hair – and also the Aquarium. The latter was good fun with many amazing, mystical and colourful creatures, including some crazy sea horses and friendly turtles with long necks.

On one of our nights out, we played some interesting drinking games in our dorm before descending to the bar below the hostel. Side Bar sells some tasty cocktails and is good for an easy night out whilst staying in Wake Up, but the crowd is fairly young (18,19) and the music was often dodgy (something the dj did not enjoy being told). Alex and Nicola noted how the bar had changed a great deal since they had last been there; from chilled and sociable to more of a party club.

On another night we went out to Kings Cross, which was cut short upon arrival, where we were bombarded by non existent skirts, strip clubs, a rude bar leaflet hander – outer man who got a good talking to and expensive entrance fees into what seemed to be standard bars. Not really our scene.

With Sydney crammed with typical touristy activities, we felt satisfied when we had to move on and get a coach to Byron Bay. We bought an open 3 stop ticket for $168 to Byron Bay, Brisbane and return to Sydney. This price was steep for our budgets, especially when we had become accustomed to the ten pound equivalent bus journeys around Asia, and so this woke us up to the prices that we needed to start getting used to from now on.

Singapore was fairly similar to London – only cleaner and hotter! We embraced the good weather and occasional thunder storms. One of the main reasons that we enjoyed our short stay was because we were lucky enough to spend it in Nicola’s godparents beautiful house – much too nice for us scruffy backpackers! It came equipped with a swimming pool (which we made good use of) and the lovely maid Jess, who made us delicious home cooked meals. During our stay we packed in many things including a trip to Universal Studios, which was great fun and the sophisticated (thus expensive) Clarke Quays and Chimes. If you visit the latter you can enjoy a night out in the La Baroque Bar, where you can get entry and unlimited drinks for $20 between 9-11.30pm, which is definately the cheapest you will find in the area!

This post is short but sweet, and Singapore overall: definately worth a short visit

We then took a bus to the city centre and found a hostel called Pondock Lodge. It is very basic and Laura and I had the pleasure of sharing a box room with no windows, but it had air con at least and for £6 a night we couldn’t really complain – especially with Malaysian prices being much higher than we are used to!

We spent a day shopping in the Mega Mall, which is a dangerous move for backpackers as there are many brilliant shops to explore and spend your money on.

The following day we explored the gardens, including an Orchid farm. We booked a trip up the Patronas Towers, which is free of charge but you must book your slot in the morning as this is a popular tourist attraction. There are 84 accessible floors in total, but tourists are only allowed as far as the 44th, which was certainly high enough for me! You get a great view of the city from the connecting bridge and are allowed on it for 15 minutes.

It was a short three night stay in Kuala Lumpur, but that was all that we needed to get things done. It is considerably more expensive in the city, (around London prices) but this will help prepare us for Australia and the other countries we have yet to visit.

We took a trip to the floating village, which was pricey at $15 each but worth doing if you are interested in seeing the floating houses where some of the locals live. You take a boat down the river, which was extremely low when we went causing the boat to get stuck several times! We also got extremely wet from all the other boat’s struggling motors splashing in the shallow water.

Most importantly in Siem Reap is Angkor Wat temples. For a day pass you pay $20 (although you can get a pass for up to a week if you can afford to take your time) and for this we were able to see the sunset from the Mountain ruins on the evening before our ticket was valid. We arose the next morning at 5am so that we would arrive in time to see the sunrise from behind Angkor Wat, which was a stunning sight. We also visited The Bayon ruins, which had intricate Bhuddda carvings in the stone and many levels and tunnels to explore. Taphomn is where parts of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed and the stone is covered with a mass of tangled tree roots, which highlights the age of these ancient buildings. Angkor Wat is a must see for all those travelling through South East Asia!

There are some lovely seaside restaurants, our favourite being Aquarium which served a delicious barbeque dinner.

At night time the bars can get fairly lively. We found the busiest bar to be The Nap House, which had friendly staff and is open 24 hours. Looking back, we could have definately explored Sihanoukeville a lot more, but we were too set in our relaxing routine of lounging on the beach, dining at restaurants and heading to the bars in the evening for drinks. Such is life!

As you walk through the entrance, the first building you come accross is the Memorial Charnel, which holds 8,000 human skulls displayed inside to ‘remember the spirits of victims’.

Walking through the fields was a harrowing experience, as we passed many shallow graves where people had been buried. The most disturbing part was an area that was sectioned off, which contained shards of human bone pertruding through the soil; a tour guide informed us that the bones often come up from the soil during the rainy season. This shocking scene emphasised the extent of horrific acts and devistation that took place during those years.

This was followed by a visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – another truely upsetting experience. Here is where the victims were kept prisoners. There are rows upon rows of photographs of each person kept in the prison along with the prison cells and some gruesome photographs of the tortured victims.

Although visiting such museums are emotionally challenging, they do serve as a reminder of the terrible truths that should not be forgotten or repeated.

Hope I haven’t depressed anyone too much! On a much lighter note, we ended our day with a lovely meal in Chiang Mai restaurant, which serves delicious food – we would recommend most dishes but the Amok is certainly worth tasting.

Although we had not heard great things from other travelers about the City, we wanted to give it a chance and especially to visit the War Reminants Museum. Unfortunately, we were immediately presented with bad news about the girls’ first night in the city; Nicola had been mugged. We would now highly recommend that girls do not wear strappy handbags around the streets as, in our case, the mugger cut the strap with a knife and ran off with the bag. Luckily no one was hurt, but it was not the most desireable of circumstances to be faced with.

The next day we visited the War Reminants Museum, which mainly displayed photographs of the Vietnam war and an Iprisonment system exhibition. The photographs were extremely disturbing, showing the effects of Napalm and Agent Orange and how it disfigured generations of Vietnemese civillians. The museum in no way censors the violence, cruelty and tragedy of the war, with photos of tortured victims to corpses and even preserved featus’. I admit that we came out of the museum feeling very depressed.

Our time in Ho Chi Minh was short lived, as we hopped on a bus the next day to cross the border into Cambodia, arriving in Phnom Penh in 6 hours – which we now consider to be a short journey!

We stayed in Phong Lan guesthouse, which was clean, cental to the shops and restaurants whilst being close to the beach. The guy that runs the place is extremely friendly and genuinely cares for his guests, warning us to look after our bags and not take too much money out.

One evening, we participated in what was cringely titled the ‘Booze Cruise’ – unlimited drinks and dinner included. As the alcohol flowed, we met some great people, including a newly engaged Australian couple amongst other big characters. As we sailed back to shore, everyone bonded over a sing song – picture a slurred ‘American Pie’ in unison, yet not quite in tine to the music.

We were then taken to the very sophisticated Sailors Club, which had a great atmosphere and was right on the beach, followed by Why Not Bar, a packpackers haven.

We now await yet another sleeper bus to Saigon this evening.