"Everyone has to go to Angkor Wat"

---

Okay, one druken conversation in Bangkok with some guy began with that sentence and ended up with us here in Cambodia.
In all fairness he was right, everyone should go to Angkor. How this is not rated as one of the wonders of the world I do not know.
Perhaps I should fill you in on the events of the last few days.
We spent a hole day island hoping around Koh Chang on a snorkelling trip. The islands were amazing and the range of tropical fish was astonishing. We arrived back in Koh Chang relatively unburned and ready for our early morning bus trip across the border.
The bus picked us up and, after a curfuffle with some no show we headed out across on the ferry and towards the Cambodian border.
We were dropped, en-route, at a restaurant whilst the tour company got our visas for us (this, it turns out, is a classic scam and cost us about ten dollars each more than it should have). Once across the border we were met with another classic scam. The Thai tour company had arranged transportion upto the border and after that we had a "seven hour local bus journey", or we could pay another 200 baht each to get a taxi. Naturally we couldn't argue or go back over the border to kick some ass so we coughed up and headed on to Siem Reap.
This turned out to be the most bizarre taxi ride of my life, sitting in the back of a Toyota, listening to Karaoke DVDs which skipped everytime we hit a pot hole (approximately every half a second). There was a point where I thought we were going to have to endure one S Club Seven track for the entire three hours as everytime it finished the car miraculously managed to make it jump back to somewhere near the start of the track. Eventually the driver decided that he'd had enough of this particular song and dumped on some Cambodian/ English mixed Christmas songs!
After arriving and having the usual 'discussion' about how much a room should cost we hit bar street for a few beverages. This is just like Khao San road in Bangkok but the Cambodians, if anything, are even nicer than the Thai's.
The following day we headed for the main event, our first of three days exploring the temples of Angkor, beginning with the daddy itself, Angkor Wat.
If you've ever seen the film Tomb Raider then you've seen a few of these temples already (Ta Phrom being a prominent one as its the one with all the trees growing through it). The temples are amazing and the bloke's advice in Bangkok couldn't have been more spot on. I simply don't have the linguistic skill to describe how breathtaking these temples are but our pictures (eventually) arriving on flickr should show just some of the extent of their beauty.
Cambodia itself has been a surprise. Although the people have clearly been left scarred by their unfortunate recent past they are amazingly friendly as a people and Siem Reap itself has the hall marks of a prosperous (dare I say Western) tourist destination. The sheer number of five star hotel behemouths here is unbelievable (mostly fueled by Chinese and Korean tourist money).
Linz and are booked to return to Bangkok in a couple of days time after one more day on the temple trail.
Keep watching the flickr site and prepare to be god smacked.

Take care,

Bri and Linz.

Ps. Almost forgot if anyone wants a pant wettingly funny read (especially if you've travelled in India) the get yourself "Are you experienced" by William Sutcliffe. Its was recommended to us by the same bloke that told us to come here and had me crying with laughter. (People that have been to India will especially enjoy the standard conversation with a local).

---