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Published: October 3rd 2008
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Hey there!
We caught a bus to the Cambodian border from Koh Chang which took about 5 hours, we were joined by Maria from Sweden who was travelling alone and didn’t fancy the border trip on her own as its renowned for being hectic and full of scams. Poipet border has many pickpockets, mostly children and at every turn someone was trying their luck, overcharging for visas, changing currency etc…we managed to avoid all scams and got our visa for the correct money and without too much hassle.
There were many travellers with us and we made some good friends, Jonchi from Germany and Trinny from Chilli, they decided to get a cab with us and Maria to Siem Reap all five of us crammed into the cab which took 3 hours, a real squeeze but we had a good laugh. Our guesthouse was excellent with a roof top bar and very sociable, at one point a guy named Nick who lives in Oz had a chat and a few beers with us, turns out he grew up on Hayling Island, small world eh!
The next day myself and Craig hired a couple of dodgy mountain bikes for
1 USD a day and rode around the streets of Siem Reap, loads of fun and a lot of moped dodging, the local people were lovely and very friendly, we found some temples which were beautiful and explored the back streets. That evening we met up with a bunch of people we met at the border and went to the Dead Fish Tower restaurant, it had a live crocodile pit and amazing split level floors, a really fun evening!
For the next couple of days we visited the temples of Angkor, these amazing temples are breathtaking and very ancient, the architecture is so beautiful that we spent hours exploring and basically just staring at them. The most inspiring was Angkor Thom which has 216 faces of Buddha on the temple and also Ta Phrom which has a 250 year old tree that has grown into the walls, it was an incredible sight to see the jungle merge into the old stones,
The most famous temple is Angkor Wat which is huge and again visually magnificent, we managed to see this great temple at sunrise and sunset, this really was a sight to behold and the sky lit up
over the three towers and even though there were hundreds of people there the whole place fell silent, magical!
One evening Craig and myself went the Cambodian BBQ restaurant which serves usual meats like chicken and beef but also snake, crocodile and ostrich. We cooked the meat ourselves at the table which was fun. We both tried the snake which was Python, I found this to be strange and quite chewy, however the crocodile was great and tasted a bit like pork and the ostrich a red meat that melts in the mouth was lovely!
Our next stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh which is the capital, this journey took us 4 hours from Siem Reap and we went on a bus with the locals which was cool! This stop was to get our Vietnam visas from the embassy and to go to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. The museum was very hard to visit and emotional, however I think its important to know the tragic history of Cambodia and why so many peoples lives were cruelly taken by the hideous Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields were equally shocking but they
do have a memorial within the grounds to remember the victims and where you can lay flowers in their memory.
After Phnom Penh we took a bus to Kampot which took about 4 hours, really lovely journey with beautiful scenery of rice fields and villages, the locals were great and the town quiet with not a lot to do, it’s a place where you go and chill and watch the sunset over the mountain. We took a trip to the local caves and trekked through lots of mud and past rice fields to get there with five small children as guides. The caves were amazing and had a temple in one of them, the stones were different colours and interesting shapes, very beautiful.
From Kampot we travelled down to the south of Cambodia to the port town of Sihanouckville, it has lovely beaches and a great place to hang out. Craig’s friend runs a bar on the secluded beautiful Otres beach called the Ying Yang, we stayed in his friends bungalow next to the ocean which was great and Craig did some skimming which involved a small surfboard, rope and a quad bike, this is a sport made
up by his mates, quite extreme but he enjoyed it! Our bungalow was next to the Tik Tik bar which is run by two brothers from Holland, really chilled out guys and very friendly, we spent loads of time hanging out with them talking and drinking local Cambodian coffee.
We also stayed on Serendipity beach which was quite busy with lots of beach bars, one called Cloud Nine where we spent a few nights drinking rice wine (locally produced) with the bartender and a few other travellers, excellent evenings but bad hangovers the next day lol!
Had an amazing time in Cambodia and off to Vietnam on the 28th of September!
With love, Caz and Craig xxxx
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