Siem Reap

The bus journey sapped most of our day. The smooth tarmacked road from Phnom Penh wasn't that smooth due the buses solid suspension! Our bums left the seats several times and there was no chance we were going to get any kip!!

We got a 'free' Tuk-Tuk from the bus stop and the driver took us to a hotel that was $8 fan only. The free Tuk-Tuk then turned out not to be free as he obviously wanted to take us around Angkor. Titi (pronounced TeeTee not Titty as Emma pronounced it!) came up with a journey that would see us out for 13 hours (sunrise to sunset). This meant we would 'only' have to pay $20 each rather than the 2/3 day pass at $40 each!

Heading into town later we were pleased to see prices were good for food and drink. The roads don't seem to have names apart from 1 called 'Pub Street'. Funnily enough this was where the action was at. Draft beer was 50 cents and meals $3-4 in restaurants or $1 at the side of the road. We had an amazing BBQ meal each which was called a Khmer BBQ but really it was just a really nice BBQ! We headed to bed earlyish ready for the next day. We got into the room and it was so hot that we had to pay extra for air con!

We woke up in the dark at 4.30am, Titi was there waiting for us at 5am and off we went. We went to Angkor Wat for sunrise, which is the main place you would have seen and heard about. There were some people sitting on the bank of the moat. We had been told the view of Angkor Wat by the water was best for sunrise but we didn't think this spot was the right one so carried on. There were people everywhere and eventually worked out where the best place was. We got a spot by the lake and got some great pictures from our little camera. We bought a cup of tea (you get a free seat) and watched as the sun rose. It was a better view before the sun rose as it did so directly behind Angkor and blinded us! We walked around and were pretty amazed by it all. I wasn't sure if I'd find it interesting enough (Kris) but it really was great. We bought a book too so we knew what we would be looking at.

We went to about 8 places in all, they were;

Angkor Wat
Banteay Srei
Pre Rup
Ta Prohn
Ta Keo
Victory gate into Angkor Thom
Baphuon
Bayon
BakHeng

The furthest was 15km away but the rest were close to Angkor Wat. They were all slightly different. The French Archaeologist decided to leave one of the sites as they found it - Ta Prohn. Some of you may have already seem it from the Tomb Raider film. It was incredible. It had trees going through the walls and passages had collapsed -it looked like an Indiana Jones set! We did a lot of climbing at all sites so were tired by the end of the day. Most of the 'steps' were above knee height and very thin so getting up and down was very sketcky! We ended the day at a site on a hill and watched a really good sunset.

That evening we had our 4th curry in 5 nights. The Khmer curry (Khmer being Cambodian) is amazing. We'd also highly recommend Fish Amok and Loc Lac. That's all we've eaten in Cambodia!!YUUMMM. All dishes have been $3 so pretty good. We decided to stay an extra day and look around the town and decide what on earth we were going to do next.

We didn't know whether to go to Laos or not. By bus it takes 2 days via Bangkok and to leave it will take 3 days via the north! We don't have time for bus travel so decided if we want to go we'll have to fly! We booked tickets to Vientiane (Laos) for the next day. We walked around the night Market which was really really quiet. We got some more great bargains. We always seem to be first customer of the day as when we buy they say 'special price for first customer'! We did buy an oil painting of a floating village. We got it for $8 which we thought was pretty good. It pretty minimal but the texture is good!

We have to send a huge package home when we get to Bangkok as we have been buying so much. It's mainly tat but we like it!

There were quite a few children begging and selling things to tourists as they get the cute vote. They say things like 'no money, no school'. We asked someone about this and they said that school is free but because they are earning money for their families they'd rather work! In Phonh penh we saw a family drop off their kid at 10pm to start working! Some of the kids go to school and then work, they can't be lying about that as some of their English is amazing and they're still in school uniform. One girl recited facts about England for 1 minute and even knew where Wales was! We were impressed but we didn't feel it was right to buy off the kids as they should be at school or playing!

We had another curry and then a 'Dr Fish' foot massage. Basically you sit around a paddling pool getting tickled to death by little fish eating your dry skin!! Unlucky for the fish! We're not sure why but the fish around by Emma's feet were all gasping for air!

We had breakfast before we left for the airport. It's worth the mention because the 'fruit with yogurt' actual had sweetcorn in it. Pretty strange... We had to pay a hefty $25 departure tax' which we hadn't budgeted for and annoyed us just as we were leaving on a high.

Next stop, new country it's Laos