Friday

This morning was a chance to study the history of Cambodia and the economic development of Siem Reap - or, to put it another way, play tourist for the morning with a visit to the famous temples of Angkor Wat.

Angkor was the original capital of Cambodia, but was abandoned in 1431 after a devastating attack by Thailand. The Khymer court returned briefly from Phnom Penh in the 16th century, but then the temples were abandoned to the monks and the jungle.

The temples were famously 'discovered' by French explorer Henri Mouhot in 1860, but this was in fact a myth that grew up after his death - Mouhot himself never made any such claim. In reality, monks were still living and working in many of the temples, and a number of other European and Japanese visitors had previously published accounts of it, including detailed plans.

The one temple I was keen to visit, having seen photos of it, was Ta Promh. This is a 12th-century temple which has been partly reclaimed by the jungle.

Ta Promh was made most famous to today's westerners by the film Tombraider, part of which was filmed there. The tree (one of a number of such) is real - the passageways beneath are not.

I watched the sunrise later in a civilised manner: looking at Sabine's photos on my laptop on the drive south.

I did briefly connect to the hotel's one DSL line at reception, but as it was slower than dial-up, I abandoned any thoughts of uploading the blogs from there.

The drive back 'home' to Phnom Penh took the rest of the day. We stopped for a late lunch en-route, I completed the blog during the drive and we arrived back at the hotel at just before 7pm.

We completed the trip with an evening debriefing by some of the local Unicef staff. This was an opportunity for us to ask any last-minute questions, and to let the team know our thoughts on the trip. Needless to say, these were extremely positive.