Sihanoukville

We've just crossed over into Cambodia and wow, what a difference a line in the sand makes. At the border post, the Vietnamese building was a huge imposing fortress, while the Cambodian side had a spirly 8 storey pagoda.

We're on the beach right now - well, as I type this I'm 3m from the sand. A nice little 8km beach of whiteish sand, largely empty. This is the first day it hasn't rained for a month aparantely. We're staying in Faulty Towers, a $5 guesthouse that includes a private dvd player and 200 movies. Food's more expensive, isn't quite as nice but its still good.

I didn't bring an ipod clone because I thought there'd be nowhere to get new music for it. I was wrong! Every country has had computer shops selling mp3's very cheaply. The one here is particularly organised, with 2,500 albums and they've even got their own compilations. Oh well, it all works on my MP3 cd player which is much more loseable.

The people here are so much friendlier. Their culture appears to be slightly Indian - statues of Ganesh, Shiva, Brahma etc, and an alphabet that's very pretty but unreadable. Their English is much better than Vietnam, I'm guessing here, but I spent 10 minutes trying to get a Vietnamese woman to say "child" (she kept saying it as 2 syllables with a glutteral stop chi - uld) but here, I've had an entire conversation with a 12 year old kid.

Anyway, getting hot in here so its back to the beach for a dip.