The rest of Cambodia, and the death of my camera

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Hey all - realised that I hadn't updated the blog for some time, so here it is.

After Phnom Penh, we headed to the South West coast of Cambodia, to a place called Sihanoukville. There is a city of sorts, with nothing of any real interest, but there are lots of nice beaches.

We stayed in a real hippy place, right on the beach, run by a pair of Cambodians who called themselves Mama and Papa. And the room was free - I say room, it was a cupboard with a matress on the floor and a light, but nevertheless, it didn't cost us a thing the whole time we stayed there.

Course, they made a load of money the amount we all ate and drank there - there was a group of about 8 of us at the time.

Anyway, played lots of cards (have just been taught Chinese Poker, which is extremly addictive), and relaxed on the beach for a few days; swam, and... that's about it. For 4 days. Hard life.

Originally, the plan was to go straight from Sihanoukville up to the north of the country, to Siem Reap. As it turned out, there aren't any roads that connect the two - so we had to travel back to Phnom Penh, stay another night there, and then get a bus the next day.

Eventually made it Siem Reap - fairly small city, and like the rest of Cambodia, really poor. Lots of begging kids and things all over the place. Wierd actually, the city is fairly run down except for the touristy bit, where Bar Street is. That is pretty clean and quite nice.

Went into one bar that had a crocodile pit. Bit unusual, but why not.

The main purpose of the visit to the city was to go and see the nearby Angkor Wat. Actually, there isn't just one temple - it's a whole complex of them, the most famous and oldest being Angkor Wat, but there are some really interesting ones - some with faces carved all over it; one (which was apparently in the Tomb Raider film) which is still as it would have been when it was re-discovered, with trees and plants growing out of the stones of the ruins.

So, we went the night before, to see the sunset there, which was OK; and then went the next day for sunrise - this involved a very, very early start.

Managed to get a photo of the sunrise over the temple before my camera finally packed up - it has been on the way out for a month or so, and it is now officially dead. So most of the temples I don't have pictures of. Fortunatly Ro does, so I will get those when I get a CD of all her photos.

After Angkor Wat, we realised that we had mistakenly booked our flight to Bali from Phnom Penh, and not Siem Reap. This meant we had to go back AGAIN (making it 3 seperate times). Anyway, we did, and then began the trip to Bali - which involved a flight to Bangkok; then to Singapore; and finally down to Bali.

As usual, can't put the photos (if I even have them) on yet, because the computer I'm using is a bit tempremantal - I'll stick them on at a later date.

Hope everyone is well back home!

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