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(9 October)
Today was a major travel day. Holly still hadn't joined us by the time we left, but would catch up with us later! We got private buses to the border at Poipet, getting our visas on the way for 1200 BHT. When we got off at the border the heat was mental! Was so not prepared cos the air conditioning everywhere is so cold! Never really felt such humid heat before. Thankfully we didn't have to carry our rucksacks about, someone took them over the border for us - I'm gonna get so lazy on this trip! When we got through we got on to a public bus to Siem Reap.
Cambodia is so different! It seems to be very poor, loads of begging kids everywhere, nothing but farms in a lot of the country. Really interesting to see. Unfortunately we seemed to be chasing the monsoon, and it was pretty wet when we got there. Nice hotel again though, they carried our bags AND gave us a drink of orange juice and a cold towel when we arrived! Felt like royalty haha... It's the little things in life. After showers etc we were going to go to a local house for dinner! Unfortunately the rain was so bad that by the time we were to go the town had been flooded! So the previous plan of tuk tuks was abandoned, and we piled into 2 jeeps, one with just an open back (like a truck!). I was lucky on the way there getting a seat inside, as it was still raining! We had to drive the whole way around the town to avoid the wort flooding, but still hit a lot of it! I've never seen anything like it, it was actually crazy. The river basically blended in completely with the water on the road. It had to be about 2 or 3 feet deep in places, I couldn't believe the car was getting through! Not only that, but people were still trying with tuk tuks and bikes and motorbikes! Felt so bad for all the poor people actually loving there, with all their homes being flooded! Although a lot of them are built on higher ground and on stilts. Seeing the flooding was definitely a really good experience.
We got to the locals house for dinner and there were loads of kids running about, more than 10 I think. All waving at us and saying hello. We went and sat in a circle of cushions on the floor. It turned out that it was a Cambodian lady and her English husband who ran the place, and they took in really poor local kids and taught them English etc so that they would have a better chance at a good job when the grow up. They run evenings like that with group dinners to try and raise money for the kids. The food was awesome, loads of different dishes to try. The food was included in the tour cost but I think we just paid for drinks. After dinner we got told a bit about what they do and then got to talk to and play with the kids. They were so cute! And their English was really good. A lot of the Khmer (Cambodians) that we have met have pretty good English... For selling stuff anyway! On the way back I sat in the back bit of one of the cars which was pretty interesting...had a much better view of the flooding etc but wasn't great for photos between the bumps and the darkness! We went straight to bed after because we had a huge day the next day...up at 4am to see the temples!
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