101 Challenges:

Location : Penang - Malaysia

Location: Phi Phi - Thailand

Yesterday was Songkran, which is the Thai New Year and is celebrated by all. The New Year is brought in with a massive water fight, with gigantic water pistols and buckets of water being aimed at anybody passing by. The Thais love this time of year so much so, that even the shops close. Which for Thailand really does indicate how precious this holiday is.

Unfortunately we missed much of the day as we were both feeling worse for wear – Lindsay, as he partied all night and woke up in a bar on the other side of the island, and Lee, because he was ill. Which is another way of saying too much drink also.

However, Lindsay did manage to soak up (pun intended) some of the fun as, when he woke up in the bar he had slurishly collapsed in, he had to walk for about two hours in the sweltering, sweat-enducing heat before he managed to get a sight of his first taxi.

He asked how much it would cost to take him home and after being told 400 Baht he walked for another hour before reluctantly agreeing a ludicrous fee to hop on the back of two 12 year old kids moped just so he could get back to his bed. Happily he laid his head to rest, blissfully in the comfort of having saved 100 Baht after only having had to walk 87kms (rough guestimate).

During his early morning hangover walk he was constantly soaked by buckets of water, some with ice in them - much to his delight, and the others with simply annoying quantities of bloody water, but it was all part of the Thai tradition and he took it surprisingly well – calm, upbeat, and without spitting out his dummy. Eventually, three hours later, he arrived back at the hotel drenched and somewhat sunburned – with the classic 'Farmers Tan'.

We were quite devastated to miss being able to act like kids and for once not stand out from the crowd or be threatened with arrest. Lindsay though, had the pleasure of at least joining in a water fight the night before at the many bars he had frequented.

Talking about arrest or cops to be precise, we were pulled over at a random police check yesterday on our mopeds. This has happened to Lee once before for not wearing a helmet (he wasn’t given one) and he was fined 200 Baht which he did not pay as he was leaving the island on which the fine was being imposed on that same day and was advised by the cop not to bother. Nice people so the Thai cops are.

On this occasion we were both wearing helmets and so, when pulled (in the decent sense of the word) we felt confident of no monies being extracted from our tight pockets. Oh how wrong. The smiling chap of authority simply said “licence you show”.

Neither of us were carrying a licence at the time and explained this to the still smiling officer. Surely he’d be happy to accept our excuses of not wanting to go to beaches with our wallets and encourage pickpockets and (not or) get all our valuable documentation and currency bearing the Kings head all wet. We explained everything was kept safe and dry and not stolen back at our hotel. We even offered to go back and get them but the now Cheshire cat in front of us didn’t want to see them. He simply wanted to fine us, 300 Baht each. Bad people so the Thai cops are.

In Thailand you get a licence by simply sitting a theory test, no driving is required so why we were being asked to show was really irrelevant and confusing to us. Reluctantly, and after some shouting and a few swear words (which were quickly swapped for nice words and calm talk – through fear of being arrested for 19 years) we got off our bikes and decided to be as politely awkward as the situation that was being presented to us was.

Lee said he had no money and enquired what would happen if he didn’t pay? His keys were quickly whipped from the ignition of his moped and it looked like the bike would be confiscated. Lee (like one of those idiots you see on America’s dumbest criminals) jumped back on his bike and said “well, you ain’t taking this without me on it”. Foolish and naïve really looking back in hindsight.

Lindsay, despite ranting and raving like a stereotypical Scotsman about to be left £5 worse off, due to what was obviously a barefaced money making scheme for the local police department, offered to go back and get the licences while Lee waited there with the officer. This kind and gentlemanly offer was subsequently declined by the officer who explained he didn’t give a hoot (pronounced feck in Thai) about seeing our licences and that all he wanted was money.

We eventually paid – apparently you can’t haggle fines with these peeps - Lindsay was furious that he was charged for not having a licence on him but Lee was slightly relieved - as he doesn’t actually have one anyway.

This incident had caused so much distress and, with missing Songkran, the Gods were advising us it was time to move on - and so we did. We caught a boat to Kho Phi Phi one of the islands devastated by the Tsunami a few years back but, more famous for being the setting of “The Beach”. You wouldn’t know this on arrival as the town is completely rebuilt - if a little shanty looking in some places. Only Lee knew the difference as he had been here in 2000 and the layout of the “new” town is a little different.

This place is still beautiful and so we’ll spend a few days here before deciding where to go next - we have a spare 10 days before we have to be in Kuala Lumpur for the next bunch of challenges and filming.

Let the beer flow, the woman dance (that may be a metaphor) and the sun shine. We’re officially on holiday for 10 days so don’t expect much in terms of updates as we’re incredibly busy doing nothing!

Location: Phuket - Thailand

Bloody hell! We are, yet again, suffering the world’s worst hangovers.

What was meant to be a civilised and quiet evening, with conversations of politics, religion, society, books and other normal things – turned out to be a huge and joyous (until this morning) chaotic night.

Harri and Russell picked us up from our hotel 32 minutes later than planned (we think they were teaching us a lesson for the five minutes we held them up yesterday) and took us to a very posh restaurant.

Athena was already there and greeted us with those French cheek kisses (that we’ve grown to love) and introduced us to her friends, Brian and Roslyn. We won’t go into any details here, but Brian’s ex-military and now works for the Queen and Ros has the most amazing accent and pronunciation we’ve ever encountered – this made Lindsay instantly fall in love with her.

So there we were. Sitting with two posh folk, Athena (who’s also posh but we swear in front of her sometimes) Harri and Russell. We had planned to pay for the meal as a gesture of thanks for everything everyone’s done for us – again, if you ever get the chance to come here, make sure you visit PAWS!

Thank God the gentleman that is Brian footed the bill. Champagne of the highest calibre, gorgeous reds and amazing white wines flooded the table – which was quickly covered with nearly everything from the food menu.

Brian and Ros asked us about 101 Challenges and wished us all the best with our little adventure – which made us smile. Everyone chatted to everyone, we laughed, joked, hugged, French cheek kissed a little more, it was perfect! We were made to feel right at home and, even though we’re bordering on mental deficiency and are rather slow and stupid – somehow we managed to not offend anyone, and keep up with great topical discussions and the likes. It was possibly the best evening meal we’ve ever had.

Here’s us all sat, merrily tipsy, after the meal. We’d love to say a huge thanks to Athena for allowing us to sit next to her, and to Brian for paying for it all!

But, as usual, we quickly disintegrated the elegant evening into a common Scottish piss-up and so, here’s us picking up Athena (who we think, loved it all).

With the meal over Harri and Russell insisted that we go to Patong – Phuket’s sex market basically. Without any hesitation we agreed to be taken (to Patong). The best way to describe this area is; It’s like any of the main bar-streets in Benidorm, but on drugs. There must be 42 billion bars, 83 billion pole dancers, lap dancers, hookers and everything in between, and 120 billion pensioner sex-tourists. We didn’t like it that much so, holding tightly onto Russell and Harri’s hands, we asked them to take us somewhere else.

Unfortunately, that somewhere else was a bloody amazing club called 'Club Lime' and we tucked into tequila after tequila after vodka and red bull after another tequila and 6 or 20 more vodkas.

We had an absolutely amazing time! Dancing like tw*ts still, but not caring about it. Talking and cuddling our two mates and chatting up anything that moved into our line of vision – sometimes we had to move to create a different line of vision. Lindsay still never pulled but this time we don’t blame it on his completely crap chat up lines or his embarrassingly appalling patter with the ladies. This time we blame it on his inability to handle, or should we say his stupidity at consuming so much tequila;

We don’t know what time these pictures were taken (tequila makes you lose your sense of time, days and even age) but we do know that Lee has not one single bone of compassion in his body for his little bro. Not one cuddle, not one soft pat on the back, not one word of comfort – just 703 pictures and hysterical fits of laughter.

Location: Phuket - Thailand  

Today we lifted our slightly heavy heads off our surprisingly comfortable pillows (surprisingly comfy for a 350 Baht double twin room in the forever expensive heart of Phuket) after only arriving in this striving little sex-parlour of a town/city/metropolis and immediately going out on the lash with our new found friends, Harri and Russell.

Whilst up in the north (around about Vietnam and Cambodia) we arranged to meet up with these two amazing peeps so that they could introduce us to PAWS (Phuket Animal Welfare Society) and help us give away some of the cash that you lot have so lovingly, selflessly and generously given us to spend on nice and deserving things like tribal or orphaned kids and poor folks who need a little helping hand in helping themselves.

Well today we decided to help our little four-legged-furry-friends. Woof-woof’s and meow-meows. Dogs and cats to those who never studied the farmyard of 'Old MacDonald'.

To the night before the morning after, almost immediately after greeting these two great folks and kissing both on the cheek in a posh and French manner for some unbeknownst reason, we headed off, naturally, to the pub.

A world series of alcoholic-filled delights were feasted upon with great enthusiasm and a very warming natural flow of conversation, jokes, bad words and some facts and figures for the serious bits flowed throughout the evening.

Harri described herself via emails and text messages as a Billy Idol look-a-like, but turned out to be a girl. This confused Lindsay somewhat, as surely only boys can be called Harri - naming someone of one sex by a name more commonly used by the opposite sex is a preposterous idea. But it turns out that Harri(et) was genetically born a female. We’d never spoken to Russell – who turns out to be Harri’s boyfriend. So, like him, we’re glad Harri’s a lady.

Rather responsibly, Harri and Russell left our company at about midnight in order to meet us at 10am the following morning. Rather irresponsibly though, they left us in the presence of their mate (and now ours too) Neil.

Rather irresponsibly, we took Neil up on his suggestion to carry on drinking and to leave the now closing bar we were sitting in, and head to some others.

Neil’s a great and typical Geordie lad. Funny, polite, charming, always engaging in topical conversation, a master at handling blood/alcohol levels and… a great believer in pleasures of the sexual nature. The Scots and the Geordies always get along like houses in roaring flames wherever and whenever we meet.

First stop was the Pink Lady pub. You’d think the name would have given it all away really, but we were entranced by the great words of enthusiasm and encouragement of our PJ and Duncany friend and so, we followed him in like rats prancing behind the Pied Piper.

That’s odd. “There’s no one here Neil” we said together in chorus. “Why aye man! It’s awe aboot upstairs!” he merrily sang to us as we followed him to the back of a deserted bar with nothing but incredibly comfy looking sofas and spread out chairs.

26 stairs (maybe more, maybe less… who cares?) upwards and we entered another lovely room with luxurious sofas and bed-like settees. “Hmmmmm, Neil, there seems to be no one here too. Well, except for the incredibly overstaffed bar workers”.

“Why aye man. Normally This place is a lot better but they’re right mingers the night!” came a, what we thought to be odd, reply. Our Gazza boy was rather sad about something and we couldn’t grasp what had upset our normally-buzzing-with-freshness-and-funness bud.

We ordered a small bottle of beer each. The word small plays an integral part in a moan we’re about to display in a second and, as we began to realise where we were and what the bar-staff were, we did the natural and mature thing.

We giggled like 12 year old twin brothers who had just found their Dad’s porn stash and were observing the wonderful and scary marvels of a persons insides. We couldn’t help it. Every time we looked over to the bar, 8 girls would be staring all wide eyed and flirty like at us, giving little girly waves and giggles. Lindsay thought he was “in there” and he was, but even after his 3 month “stretch” he, much to the surprise and praise of Lee, would never resort to paying for the guilty pleasures of life. Or at least, pay for these pleasures in the presence of his older brother.

200 Baht was the bill for each of us. 200 Baht! That’s over £3 each for a tiny bottle of bloody Heineken Beer. And, to cut a long story short, we left the very friendly staffed establishment and headed off to a “normal” bar with cheaper nectar.

Anyhoo, 8:45am was the time we awoke. That’s approximately 4 hours and 45 minutes after we fell asleep. Whoops!

Glary eyed and frankly, looking and feeling rather sh*tty, we washed our potential hangovers away with a cold shower each, headed down stairs to have some inclusive breakfast and then, at 10:05 we were picked up by the aforementioned two. Somehow we always, always, manage to be late for everything.

Russel’s mummy, gorgeous and one of the unbelievably nicest people in the world ever - Athena, runs the centre and puts in a lot of bloody hard work, sweat, passion, blood and soul in to helping some of the poor animals of Phuket.

You see, Thailand has a massive stray problem. Dogs are everywhere. Cats are too. Some of them K9s are just happy strays, probably going through life as modern day Lassies or Littlest Hoboes. Garfields or Top Cats for the pussies.

These little blighters may be having fun rummaging through rubbish and feeding on leftovers or hand outs from locals or tourists but, through no fault of their own, they know nothing of contraception and the likes. So, these horny little furry things are having litters all over the place. That means that the already big problem of thousands of strays is becoming even bigger.

On the other hand though, and again through no fault of their own, thousands of our four-legged-friends are being abused like you couldn’t imagine. Beaten, ill-fed, mistreated, abandoned to fend for themselves, torched, attacked with machetes or (sadly, if they’re not in any of the above categories) simply killed.

PAWS does a bloody good job with these animals. The strays (who can’t keep it in their pants) are sterilised/castrated in order to prevent the already big problem, getting further out of control.

All the animals, which are either picked up off the streets or collected at temples around the island (people also dump unwanted cats and dogs for the Monks to look after) by Athena, Russell or their amazing staff of five vets and assistants, are given a health check and sterilised. They also re-home and rehabilitate hundreds of doggies and cats.

If you have a dog or a cat or, if you don’t but want one or, don’t want one but still like them or, if you simply know someone who has a pet – please visit the PAWS website. The animals really need all the help they can get – there are no laws in Thailand protecting these creatures, the centre is completely run on donations and they need more to be able to keep doing what they’re doing. We don’t like to preach, but just this once, please, if you can, donate anything you can spare to help our furry friends by clicking on the below link:

PAWS

We were shown around the clinic and got to play with a few of the puppies. Lindsay doesn’t really like cats so Lee played with them instead. Athena and Russell then took us out to their field clinic (a mobile centre which they use to go to temples and numerous other places) where we got to watch a number of dogs and cats being sterilized or castrated, checked over and fixed if broken.

It was amazing. The monks were helping, the vets and assistants were working non-stop and Athena talked us through everything that was making us cringe (it brings a tear to your eye seeing a dogs b*llock being cut off).

After a quick spot of lunch (which Athena paid for – she’s that lovely!) we headed back to the clinic and used 100 pounds of your donations to help PAWS continue their great work. It was meant to be £60 but Lindsay got carried away and gave more.

The £5 each that the following people donated was used to buy 10 bloody HUGE bags of dog food. Athena says “Thank you everybody” and the dogs say “woof, woof, woof”. The cats weren’t amused:

Jennifer Zoiti
Christian Carbines
Lisa/Michael Bell
Hannah Loaring
Charlene Wilson
Jaqueline Williamson (£10)
Joanne Sloan
Jo Slatem
Ketherine Ross
Jill Meldrum
Adam Keyte
George Johnston
Daniel Howells
Sophie Cooper
Trish Waters
Ronnie Vine
Dawn Taylor
Sarah Ryan

So, you lot, well bloody done. We’re sure the money the centre saves on dog munch over the next few weeks will go towards a couple of salmon for the cats.

We now desperately need more donations so that, whenever we come across or hear about another worthy cause, we can help them through you. So please, please, please, donate a fiver. It’s a piddly amount back home, but it goes a fecking long way everywhere else.

If you’ve donated already – thanks. You’re a star and God loves you more than those who haven’t. If you haven’t donated a pissy fiver, then stop freeloading off our critically acclaimed journals and click below. Oh, and just to go on a bit more, if you want to donate again… then you can. Special thanks to Sarah Kent who’s donated twice and Jacqueline Williamson who’s donated a staggering ten times. It’s not a competition but… Karma works in amazing circles. Give a little – get a little. Give a lot – get a lot.

Drum roll… well done to the current winner of our newly formed nice person of the year competition, Jacqueline Williamson who’s officially our leading donator – anyone up for the challenge?

 DONATE!

Right. We’re off now to go and have a nice pleasant and quiet meal with Russell, Harri, Athena and a couple of her friends – who are apparently rather posh so we’re going to be on our best behavior YA!

Location: Bangkok - Thailand

We promised we’d never go on about Lindsay’s bowel movements again but this journal entry is an exception. You see, ever since leaving Scotland on the 27th December 2007, Lindsay has lost all control of his ass. He can’t eat, sleep, walk, talk, read, sing, smile or cry without crapping himself.

For the past two weeks though we’ve been a little concerned. Lindsay’s been suffering from rather nasty diarrhoea. He’s been running (quicker than he’s ever moved before and defying the nature of physics) to the toilet at least three times a day, before breakfast. Three times after breakfast. Four times before lunch and, between lunch and tea time, visits the little boys room on average, a further five times. About four other jobby visits will be made before he goes to sleep, when, he’ll wake up at least twice during the night to poo some more.

Apparently, if your poops are runny for more than 48 hours the NHS website says you should see a doctor immediately. But, with him having absolutely no faith in the medical profession anymore after the misdiagnosis of his deadly strain of malaria as a simple sneeze and his broken toes as a grazed knee, Lindsay’s decided to become his own doctor.

Through the infinite wisdom of Google, Wikipedia and numerous other webernet sites, he’s managed to diagnose himself. He has slight Crons disease, irritable bowel syndrome, dysentery and worms.

So, using the newly created “Lindsay self-help guide” he popped down to the local pharmacy and bought some medication. He’s now taking Imodium once a day to dense up the consistency of his jobbies, Ciprofloxacin 500mg twice a day - which is apparently a rather good antibiotic and, Zenzera (2 tablets once per day) to kill the worms that he insists he’s home to.

The younger brother’s going to see how he gets on with the above before tackling the other 2374 diseases and ailments he’s found out he has after stumbling on an A-Z list of medical words. It’s like watching your Mum going through the pages of a catalogue and pointing at random and needless things, saying I’ll have that one, that one and oooh, they’re cheap, I’ll have four of them too

Location: Bangkok - Thailand

We weren’t looking forward to today as this was the day of the “I Want To Ride My Bicycle” Challenge. Initially this Challenge was to be done all over Thailand but, on discovering that this country is quite a bit bigger than the picture we were looking at on a map (about two square inches), we decided it had to be tweaked a bit and so we were going to spend a whole day in amidst the busy city traffic. Sorry Huggerman.

There’s other reasons for this too.

If we were to bike it everywhere in Thailand, we’d never get through 101 Challenges as we’d i) still be stuck at the airport as bicycles aren’t allowed on the motorways, ii) probably be dead by now or at the very least, minus a limb or two.

A few of the Challenges have had to be changed because the telly people need us to be here or there at a certain time so that bigger Challenges can be filmed properly. If we were left to film everything ourselves, we’d just balls it all up.

We really couldn’t be ar*ed and we would have at least seven heart attacks each before we left the country as we are surprisingly not that fit (despite our amazingly athletic looking bodies fooling you to believe otherwise).

What you have to take into consideration here is before 10am has arrived, it’s already 30 degrees outside - noon comes and brings with it a further five degrees of blistering heat. The humidity here is unbearable. When you have a shower you dry yourself – then dry yourself again because you’re immediately saturated in your own sweat. It’s that hot!

Now, some people may argue that the Challenge could have been conducted during the early morning hours. But that’s unfeasible. In the early morning hours, we’re drunk!

Needless to say, we didn’t die and needless to say, we won’t ever be sitting on a bicycle ever again. This is a country with probably more taxis and tuc-tucs than people. There’s absolutely no need for two fat and hairy assed Scotsmen to kill themselves or hold up lanes of traffic. You never know, you could be behind us in a taxi driving at 3mph as we hog the road.

Location: Bangkok - Thailand

Yesterday we arrived back in Bangkok from Cambodia. Usually we love this place but to be honest we’ve seen too much of it recently and therefore hope to only spend two or three more nights here before heading south, to Phuket.

From spending a few quid per night on accommodation in the amazingly cheap Cambodia - we booked ourselves into a hotel on the Kho San Road at a staggering £13 per night. Now that’s not that expensive, but to two Scotsman on a budget as tight as a fish’s bum, it’s pure madness. We could check out, but nah, we can just moan about it instead. Scots = like moaning.

We have a few things to do here including a visit to yet another temple, Yeehaa! Yesterday we visited the Grand Palace. Okay - it was cool(ish) but after Angkor Wat, every temple is going to be pretty poor in comparison. They also charge £7 to walk around the place so as you can imagine that just added to the days pleasures and detracted more from its alleged grandness.

All we can say is bring on the beaches again. We know we’re uncultured but we relish that fact and know we look good on a beach but look stupid trying to look interested in a building that has been painted gold. A few more days and we’ll be golden from lying on our backs with faces to the sun, let’s see if people pay to walk around us.

Location: Siem Reap - Cambodia

We were supposed to go to the orphanage yesterday but the director, Gerald, was in the USA and wasn’t due back until today, so we held our plans back for 24 hours and took all our goodies with us today. Technically we should have been in Bangkok right now, but when you look in to the eyes of these kids, there’s no way you can justify any act of selfishness.

So, after storing all the goodies we bought a couple of days ago in our hotel room (much to the bemusement of the cleaners) we headed back to the orphanage and gave the gifts to Gerard and Nimol (who was easy to find this time as she was standing at the gate on our arrival). They were incredibly grateful and asked us to pass on their thanks to everyone who donated. Thanks everyone who donated. Done.

We spent the whole day playing with the kids and looking around the orphanage. We got to muck around at playtime which was great with Lee chasing bubbles blown by a kid about five but with a mentality twice Lee's age and Lindsay playing (losing) some sort of marbles come snooker game too. Once 5pm came, it was dinner time and we sat with the brilliant lads and gals whilst they ate and helped out a few with their homework straight afterwards.

Then we were allowed to watch the kids chanting in a chorus of amazing little voices before it was bedtime. So we went upstairs with the staff and said goodnight before buggering everyone’s hard work up by giving the already hyper and bouncy kids some 600 lollipops. Oops. They turned brilliantly mental! Jumping higher, singing and shouting louder, fleeing around the rooms like mini road-runners.

Sensing it was probably now a good time to go, we said our farewells and thanked absolutely everyone for letting us be part of that amazing place for a couple of days.

The orphanage and its staff and the kids have all had such an overwhelming impact on us that it’s hard to put into words. Lindsay, back home, works with nothing but negativity, seeing everything bad in the world and nothing good (no, he doesn't work at McDonalds). After seeing what amazing things amazing people are doing to help amazing kids, he’s seriously contemplating giving six months of his life (maybe more, maybe less if alcohol gets its way) to this place (if they’ll have him) after the 101 Challenges are complete.

If you do any research on Cambodia over its past 35 years of history, then you’ll see that the country has been ripped to its heart with horror, terror, injustice and everything in between. To see children, as young as nine months and ranging up to 17, all with stories of the unimaginable, managing to raise a smile and actually look happy, then it’s all too easy to put your life in to context.

We arse about. That’s who we are, what we are and what this project's all about really. But, to come to the self-realisation that nothing can ever be as bad as what a tiny four year old has already gone through then, quite simply, and very easily, you realise that life for anyone reading these journals is f*cking brilliant in comparison.

On a lighter note… Potatoes! They’re great!

We almost forgot to mention, on the 31st of March, we went to Angkor Wat with our Slinky.

We’ve carried the little bugger around in our bags for three months now. He’s never shown any thanks and frankly, has just got in the way. So the day had finally come to set him free. And, he loved it!

The sights that surround Angkor are simply mesmerizing. The temples are stunning and so beautiful that it’s hard to take everything in, especially when you’re trying to fly a slinky down some stairs.

Firstly, we had to find some stairs. As everyone of the 3000 or so tourists were walking around, taking pictures and gawping at the beauty of the place, we were running around like blue a*sed flies, searching for a decent set of steps to allow us to pull off this challenge.

All of the major stairs were closed off for renovation in the main temple which did not please us one bit, so we had to settle for some baby steps. We really should have prepared for this challenge. Neither of us could make that bloody slinky work. We tried to tip it over the top stair – nothing. We edged it to the edge and to let gravity tip it over – nothing. We rolled it – nothing. Lindsay even launched it about 40 feet into the air in a hissy little baby tantrum – still nothing.

Eventually though, the slinky did what it was supposed to do. It slunk down those 8 or 9 steps in absolute glory. We were elated. So happy that technically, we had just completed another challenge. But, something was missing. Together, we felt that more could be done.

More could. Angkor Tom (or however you spell it). We never counted, but there’s probably 500 steps or so to this temple. Steep steps. Staring up at it, we now had mental erections – this was the big one, the glorious, this was our little slinky’s final calling – his destiny.

After all the fun the three of us had (the slinky’s included there) we headed off to eat some Durian fruit before heading home. Mmmmm – sticking something that smells like a toilet after Lindsay’s visited it for the 12th time in any one day, into your mouth and chewing and then swallowing, isn’t exactly the best way to enjoy lunch.

Durian fruit stinks and your brain doesn’t let you forget this when your munching down on it. Trying to swallow is hard – because your belly’s shouting “No Fecking Way Is That Coming Down Here Mate!” But it’s only a fruit after all and so Lindsay tucked in – this was much nicer than chicken feet. Lee squirmed like a girl – obviously, unlike his younger brother, his nose isn’t used to horrible stenches.

Tomorrow we leave for Bangkok and we have a partial challenge failure to admit. We were supposed to eat fried tarantulas here but we couldn’t find any anywhere. Apparently there is a lack of these creatures around these here parts so they aren’t on the streets for sale so readily or easily. And if what we are told is true then we don’t want to be eating anything that is technically endangered (even if only locally) despite them being horrible eight legged furry beasties which we don’t see the ecological point of.

Location: Siem Reap - Cambodia

Today we visited the 'Sunrise Angkor Children's Village orphanage in Siem Reap and were shown around the place by the assistant manager, Sek Nimol. She’s a lovely lady – so much compassion and passion for the kids and someone who’s doing a big bit of good, everyday of her life. She even gave us a free lunch. So that makes her even better!

The orphanage is absolutely amazing. First and foremost it works. You expect the worst of orphanages in this part of the world but the staff here have got their act together. From the moment you enter you are wowed. Now, if you're going to help a charity make sure it's one like this, you want to know your money is being used in a positive way and this we can confirm to you.

At the moment there are 74 kids here despite there really only being (official) room for 60 odd. The organistion wants to help kids so desoeratley that they find it nigh on impossible to say they're full. So it's two kids to a bed. Saying that though, its not an overcrowded cess pit, but a camp of love and happiness. Some of these kids are orphaned through poverty or death and others have been saved from things like abuse and the sex trade. Yet once here they are so loved and well provided for, they all smile and laugh and most importantly feel safe.

 The facilities are great. After love and food, almost equally important is education. They have their own classrooms where English, Maths, and Computing are taught to everyone in the orphanage. In fact education is so important the kids attend school between 7 and 11am and then 2 to 5pm Monday to Saturday. That's more than we ever did. And this practice is paying off with some of the kids winning scholarships at Australian Universities, something the average Cambodian child could not even comprehend let alone dream about.

What's more the school also has its own theatre where customary dancing and singing are taught. This is fantastic, not only do the children receive an education worthy of any western child but they remain in touch with their heritage, something us Brits could learn from. We were lucky enough to be invited to watch the kids sing and dance and we sat there like Cheshire cats as they performed not only from the performance itself (which was amazing) but the fact that here was an organisation that everyone that was involved with, donating to or simply visiting, could be proud of.

If you want to help the orphanage out then click on this link - Sunrise Children's Orphanages (http://www.sunrisechildrensorphanage.org)

So, later on in the afternoon, we ventured off to the local market. Nimol, who took ages to find as our tuc-tuc driver took us about 15km the wrong way, apprised us that due to forever increasing rice prices, the orphanage could really do with extra supplies – simple things like pens, pencils, notepads, toothpaste and other foods stuff.

The first thing we’ve noticed today is, at a local market, in Asia, only locals pay local prices. Iz it becoz we’re White? We had to haggle and haggle and haggle and then after all that, haggle a little more.

Eventually, and after a whole lot of haggling (see above) we came away, two hours later (one-and-a-half-hours longer than planned) with 100kgs of rice ($60), 90 boxes of noodles ($13.50), 80 toothbrushes ($10), an enormous quantity of pens, pencils, crayons and notebooks ($55) and, just to be nice to the kids, we bought them (with your cash) 600 lollipops ($11). It’s bloody hard work carrying all that. Still, we’re well chuffed – and so should you be;

Colin Brown
Ceri Bethan
Louise Canny
Jenny Holmstrom
Lisa O’Reilly
Laura Page
Kevin Peggie
Stacey Reid
Pank Sethi
Scott Steedman
Nicola Stevenson
Daniel Stewart
Jaqueline Williamson (£10)
Colin Wyer

Based on $1.97 to the pound (if it’s less or more we’ll make sure the donations balance is completely spent on other good causes before we return to the UK) we hope you’re happy with the way we utilised the cash you so generously gave.

God’s happy, and very impressed with you all. He says (because He chats with Lindsay in his sleep) you’ll all get into Heaven when you die, and that all of you (except two) will live until you’re at least 57. One of you lucky do-gooders is going to last until 93. Well done!