Siem Reap

We were up at 6am to get our surprisingly snazzy new minibus to the Cambodian border. We stopped about 20km short of the border to sort out visas and have a bit of lunch. From there we were dropped at the Thai border which we got through fairly quickly. The Cambodian border however was not quite so efficient and lots of folks opted for bribes to speed the process up. We were then loaded onto a fairly nice bus which gave us hope that we may be getting it all the way to Siem Reap. However it was merely the transfer bus to our crappy bus. It was the same bus as we had got to the Thai border except about 30 years older.

As we were the tallest people on the bus we were automatically given the smallest seats, on the wheel sitting behind the driver allowing us to feel every pebble along the road. The road is famous in South East Asia for how dreadful it is and it did not disappoint. As we crashed along the road we saw that they weren't lieing when they said 40% of Cambodians are under 15. Hundreds of kids ran out to the road to wave and shout at us as we passed. We even met some local kids begging at one of our food stops who spoke better Irish than us.

When we reached Siem Reap we got a Tuk Tuk to the guesthouse we had booked. Ended up in an argument with the driver who was scamming us because we wouldn't do a tour with him the following day. Once we had calmed down a bit we hit the hay after a long day travelling.

Hired a tuk tuk for the day, the following morning to take us around the Angkor temple complex. Our driver was a nice guy but had very little english. We started at Angkor Thom and saw the famous faces you see on all the postcards. From there we visited the Terrace of Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King befor Bayon. We visited lots of smaller temples you could climb up and around. Not sure how long they are going to allow people to climb up the temples as it seems to be taking its toll on them.

After lunch we visited the amazing Angkor Wat (The biggest religious building in the world - Don't yeah know). We spent a good while there taking it in before watching the sunset on Phnom Bakheng, a hill where everybody gathers to watch it.

After that we headed back to the Jasmine Guesthouse for some grub. By some miraculous fluke, Dougie who we had met in Thailand was staying in the same guesthouse as us. We decided to have a few beers to celebrate bumping into him. We headed to the local bar street and visited three local nightclubs (All dreadful) before ending up back where we started. Apparently they drink buckets in Cambodia as well. When in Rome...

The next day we slept late - Seems to be a regular theme when you bump into Dougie. We had a delicious Indian for lunch as a treat and arranged a boat for the following day to Battambang. We said our goodbyes to Dougie early that evening as we were up at a ridiculous hour the following morning.

Next Stop Battambang...

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