Cambodia-first stop Siem Reap

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Day 4:

So today was the day that we traveled to Cambodia. The ride was defiantly tight to say the least. My feet were on a wheel arch the whole journey and Johnny was sat next to a guy who enjoyed passing wind. The only saviour was frequent toilet stops and the air con (that was if you could feel it at the back of the bus). Sooo we got about half way and had to stop just before the boarder. We pulled up at what looked like the Thai equivalent of a service station (a wooden shack) and we're told that we would be completing our visa's here (in the wooden shack). Me and Johnny were obviously concerned. After handing over our passports and two passport photos it turn out that we didn't get coned out of paying additional money and this place was actually legit. We continued our journey and finally arrived in Cambodia. Cambodia at first sight was a little of a culture shock in comparison to Bangkok, the border is very much the old American Wild West mixed in with Las Vegas(you can't gamble legally in Thailand,) but I guess that's what travelling is all about (after all if everywhere looked the same you wouldn't need to travel). So we went on with our journey and arrived at the mad monkey hostel in Siem Reap. The pool was sooo tempting when we arrived but it was closed when we got there so the air con in the room had to do. We were both so tired from the journey but with the free beer token on arrival who could say no to the free beer. The roof top beach bar was pretty cool. Sand on the floors, music blaring, beer pong and lots of crazy drunk peeps. The prices of the food here in Cambodia was also a shock. Going from paying around £2 for street food in Bangkok to $6-8 dollars for fried rice in Siem. I don't think the currency change helped. So fried rice it was and to bed ready for the next day.



Day 5:

So me and Johnny devoted a day to chilling and sunbathing today. We woke at 8:00 went down to the pool and no one was around. We made our selves comfortable and enjoyed the peace (wondering where the hell everyone was). Turns out mad monkey gets a little crazy at night with everyone heading to pub street, resulting in very late nights. Everyone finally got out there pits about 1pm. The idea of drinking on a hang over is not for me but it clearly made no difference to anyone else. Straight out of bed to the bar. What happened next......... Everyone was singing very loudly to musical songs and well what ever took their fancy I really. This was an amazing opportunity for my people watching skills. Drunkenness everywhere and crazy stories from some Australian guy telling us that he got so drunk that he slept under the stars in a field and the tuk tuk guy waited for him. INSAIN. Anyways the day goes on and me and Johnny decided to go see what this pub street is all about. It's pretty much an average Ibiza strip I guess. Nothing to see in the day but raving at night. So from here we went on to the night market. The bustling stalls all selling gift and elephant pants, oil paintings and jewellery. I was impressed. We were thinking of having street food prior to seeing a little restaurant that appeared to be popular with almost every nationality. Turns out the food was amazing and it was easy to see what it was popular. After dinner we head back to the hostel to bed as we had an early start watching the sun rise over Angkor.





Day 6:

So the 4am alarm goes off (from the old school £1 alarm clock that Johnny insisted we wouldn't need) and we hit the road in darkness with many other tourists who were heading to the same place. Angkor can only be described as mind blowing. The cloud did ruin the sun rise but it was still a sight not to be missed (even the drunkest of people had seen it, going straight from the pub from their night out to watch the sunrise). There was a very pleasant silence about the place, peaceful yet calming. You could find Buddhist around each turn in the temple offering blessings and good luck for small prices. We went on with the tour seeing most of the individual temples (apparently we did well as most only do 3-4 temples before it becomes to hot). I have to tell you about Bayon. This was one of the temples which has 216 enigmatic faces staring out into the jungle. We managed to pick ourselves up a little tour guide on arrival (not sure how but all the way round we were thinking that this guy is not doing this for free), we went up to see many of the faces and he pointed us towards the best picture spots etc. We come to another Buddhist lady offering her blessings and good luck. We took her up on her offer. She placed a red coloured string around both our risks and said a prayer. We went through one door way to continue with our tour and Johnny stacks it. I mean a full blown tumble on the floor, needless to say the red band came of his wrist as soon as we got back to the hostel ha. Following the 4am start we found ourselves back at the hostel by about 12pm. The sun was sooo hot so we got back and NO ELECTRIC! "You actually have to be kidding me" no air con, so after our initial panic......You guessed it got In the beers and cooled of in the pool. Little did we realise we would make friends with some crazy ass Australians who were pretty dam cool. Telling us about their travels so far and their families back home. After a few more beers they invited us to meet them In pub street. After trying to pack our bags and shower with a torch (another item Johnny said we would not require) we headed to the restaurant that we had been to last night for more good food. Following this it was to Charlie's to meet the gang. Now Charlie was crazy, turns out the owner Charlie was pretty nuts himself. Dancing on the tables, getting in rounds of shots, just living life I guess. The drinks got flowing, and before we knew it it was 3:00am and we had a bus to catch at 7:45! YES. So after many buckets of who knows what......apparently gin and tonic is better from a bucket, singing to ACDC, quoting lines by Dave Chapelle, and singing queen very loudly (video to follow), me and Johnny called it a night and said farewells to our new buddies. Oh and guess what.... Got back to the hostel and set the £1 alarm clock again phaaaa. Siem was truly amazing! No wonder everyone raves about it.



Day 7:

The alarm goes off. I LITERALLY feel like death. The shakes, 4 bathroom visits and the thought of a 7 hour bus journey was killing me. Turns out I was lucky and there was only 4 bathroom visits. The 7 hour but ride was amazing. Air con, wifi, electric charging points, free water! Amazing. I'm so glad we upgraded if not this could have been awful. So I managed to sleep most of the way to Johnny's annoyance. We arrive in a not so pleasant mad monkey and end up in a room that has no daylight (take us back to Siem). No, it wasn't that bad we were just gutted to have left such a beautiful and fab people. We again took the opportunity to drink our free beer and tucked in to what was the worst mac and cheese I have ever had (everyone back at mad monkey Siem recommended it, it was clearly not the same) Johnny wasn't feeling great so to bed it was ready to see the killing fields and quad biking tomorrow.

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