Siem Reap and Angkor!

Siem Reap was really amazing – I can see why it’s the number 1 tourist destination in Cambodia. The town itself has such a good vibe, there is loads going on and excellent restaurants, the only drawback is that it’s a little bit expensive, but then what can you expect. Ben and I spent a couple of days cycling and wondering around the town, including visiting the markets to buy each other secret Christmas prezzies. There were loads of places to get cheap massages so we had a foot massage and a back massage - we also both got fish massages! It was so funny, such a weird sensation to have fish sucking at your feet, we were both in hysterics!

 

The temples of Angkor were absolutely amazing! We started off our temple tour the night before where we were taken to this temple on top of a hill to watch the sunset, it was really busy but worth it. Then it was the real deal the following day – We started with the biggy, Angkor Wat. It was as spectacular as I expected, we had a great few hours exploring the temple, then in the outer grounds Ben get attacked by a monkey (I know I shouldn’t have laughed but it was hilarious!!!).

 

We then spent the rest of the day visiting the other main temples in the complex, Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple was great, enclosed in these huge walls and most of the temples had faces carved in to them – all the main temples were really unique so it was really fun exploring the different layouts etc.

We saw a few other smaller temples that day and one last big one, which was my favorite of the whole lot. The temple itself wasn’t the impressive thing it was all the mangrove trees which have grown up and over the temple giving it a really mystical and jungle feel about the temple. It looked so impressive, and it was where they filmed Tomb Raider so I felt just like Lara Croft!

"Give me money mister!"

That was our last stop in Cambodia unfortunately and we decided to have a big change of plans, instead of going in to Laos from the South, We decided to do 2 weeks in Thailand first then go in to Laos from Northern Thailand – So next stop Koh Chang, Thailand.

Phnom Penh

After another slow bus ride we arrive in the capitol of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Unfortunately we only had 1 full day to spend here, we would have liked to have stayed longer but we had to move on. So we decided to spend our day visiting all the Khymer Rouge sites in the city, a really tough day, such a sad history and to think it was only the 1970’s that all this terror happened. We started by going to the killing fields just outside of the city – it’s hard to imagine that so many people were killed in this quiet field with old orchard trees growing everywhere, although it’s a brutal visit I’m really glad we went to remember all the victims. We also visited the S-21 prison in the city, an old school turned in to a prison and torture centre by the Khymer Rouge, very sad and eerie place; it was a really brutal day.

The rest of our time in PP we just wondered around the city and looked around some markets etc and we saw an elephant walking down the road in the evening – I was very excited! PP was a really nice city, great architecture and culture; I would definitely recommend staying a couple of days there.

Sihanoukville

We ventured down the Cambodian coast to the seaside resort town of Sihanoukville. Really nice place but so many people, tourists everywhere and loads of locals selling stuff on the beach etc, not the ideal place if you wanted a quiet time. Ben and I liked it a lot though, we got massages on the beach and Ben got a manicure and pedicure (hehe)! We were staying in a really nice guest house ran by British people with some great food, so we had a really nice few days there.

The beaches were really great, we went to a quieter beach one day and we also did a one day boat trip to a few different islands, on our way we saw some dolphins and flying fish – they can fly for ages! The snorkeling was really cool, Ben took the piss out of me because I wanted to use a life jacket but I was having a whale of a time bobbing about on top of the sea watching the fish (pun slightly intended)! It was a great day and after a sufficient amount of sunburn we headed back for ample aftersun applications and dinner. We really spent the rest of our time on the beaches and swimming – although we did find a place that did great fish and chips, British style!

Special!

Kep and the start of Cambodia!

So our first stop in our third country - Kep, Cambodia. We arrive there after a long and painful border crossing and a near death mini bus experience with 2 cows and come to this quiet tranquil little town, nothing like I expected. It is such a chilled out little place on the sea, we were staying in these bungalows over looking a beautiful sunset, a really nice place to spend a couple of days.

 

During our time there we mainly relaxed by a pool or on the terraces, we found the people to be so friendly though, it was amazing - everyone just kept saying "Welcome to Cambodia", it was really nice. We also did a lot of driving around on the moped to see all the old french villas that were bombed in the 1970's war, we also drove 20km or so to the next town, Kampot - we really had to do this as it was the closest ATM and we needed money but it turned out to be a really nice drive. All over SE Asia they have these make shift petrol stations on the sides of the road with petrol in Pepsi bottles etc - really cool:

Cambodia's high-tech petrol stations!