Phnom Penh

It's been an extremely hectic few days since our last entry! We've spent what seems like weeks on several different busses and hours bartering with natives to save a few quid here and there!!

We're just in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, at the moment - it's extremely hectic here, the roads are manic and you're constantly being pestered by people selling drinks/motorbike rides/takis etc but on the whole we like it here! Walked round the Royal palace today which was cool and had a well deserved lie in this morning! Off to the killing fields tomorrow so another uplifting day in store :\ We arrived here yesterday after a 6 hour journey on a rickety bus from Siem Reap - just near Ankor Wat where the temples are. It's where Tomb Raider was filmed and was incredible! We got picked up from our guest house at 5am so we could see the sunrise over the temples which is 'breathtaking' - unfortunately it was a cloudy day so the sun didn't rise - we just watched the sky getting gradually lighter so that proved to be a wasted early morning!!

We'd also endured a day travelling from Bangkok to Siem Reap too which was all ok except for the border crossing into Cambodia! We ended up paying extra for our visa as a back-hander to the people issuing it - just because they could!! We then got through into what could only be described as a very poor, run down area where we were the only westerners (well, us, 2 americans and 2 slovenians who we met) so we were pressured by loads of different people offering busses and taxis to wherever we wanted to go. In the end we found a taxi firm wh would take the 6 of us where we wanted to go (a 3 hour drive) for 100 dollars so we went for it - a comfortable, air-conditioned taxi seemed preferable to a sweaty bumpy old bus!!

The guest house was basic to say the least with a fan and no hot water! 2 days of cold showers was beginning to take its toll until i realised that on saturday night, instead of air-con and hot water we had cable tv which included the 'dodgy asian channels' you get in pubs in England so i watched the Newcastle Chelsea match live!! Bonus!! Jess didn't see it that way though - I can't understand why she'd have preferred hot running water!!

We had managed to avoid, for the most part, western cuisine thus far but cafeine addiction took its toll today so we overpaid for 2 cappucinos in 'coffee world' today! Otherwise the food has mainly been good (apart from the chicken curry incident) and the coffee awful!!

Anyway, we're being hurried out of the internet cafe so will have to leave it there! Hope you are all well, keep in touch!!

Ciao for now

Paul and Jess

xxx

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