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Hello all, What an adventure we have had. After day of just wandering around Bangkok and searching for an international pay phone (yes family) we decided to book our ticket to Cambodia for the next day. We went back to our trusty tourist travel agency (we booked our trip to Kanchanaburi through them) and got (what we thought) was a good price for the trip. The Thailand side of the trip was pretty good...good roads, nice car lots of sleep. Our only trouble was when instead of taking us straight to the border they decided to make us pay for our Cambodian visas there for a much more expensive price. Due to Fi's prior reading of the lonely planet we knew we had entered right into a scam. The EVIL man told us that if we didnt get a visa there and then the bus would not wait for us to get one at the border and that it would take us 5-6 hours. That was when we worked out that yelling at Thai (and Cambodian) people will get us nowhere. But we decided to piss them off and wait until the border. Turned out ok because even though we had to pay $25 instead of $20 it took 5 mins and we joined everyone else that had paid closer to $40 the other side. Hahahahahahaha it felt so good. The poor Dutch couple we had been talking to felt crap because they didnt want to pay them either but did. Plus their ticket cost them B1200 and ours was only B750. YAY! They were really lovely to talk to though...they are going to Aus next YAY and then NZ.rnTalk about being stared at as soon as we crossed the border. Felt kinda selfconscious with everyone looking but then we met the cutest little cambodian girl (that didnt steal from us haha) and fi asked her what her name was in Cambodian. Was a little bit proud of that so when she answered didnt really catch it....sounded something like Gaby or Gaday or something like that. Had to wait HOURS at the bus station in poipet (on the border.) The crossing we used was the Aranyaprathet/Poipet border. Was all pretty smooth getting across really. Even though there were guards with loaded machine guns as we arrived.rnWhen the bus finally arrived it was such a joke. They crammed 25 of us foreigners in this rickety junk bucket of a bus. No joke it was so squashy. And our luggage all had to go in as well. 6 hours of the bumpiest road you could ever imagine. We were sat on the wheels so our knees were next to our ears. One poor guy didnt even get a seat and boy did he complain about it. There was aircon but (we are assuming) because of the complaints it was on so low we had to open the windows which meant dust everywhere. But it was an experience even if uncomfortable. The people were hilarious and interesting...dutch people making german jokes, a french man married to an english woman making london jokes and a loud canadian trying to entertain us all. As for another random european quoting the lonely planet every 5mins." Ah ja the lonley planet said this was here...." "aahh noooo the lonely planet did not say this..." haha was classic. We finally arrived and they dropped us at a guest house not the bus station. Hahahaha the loud guy with no seat got so pissed and everyone boycotted the guest house because of it. Thanks to the loud angry guy the bus driver stopped avoiding the bumps haha and everyone was seriously falling up and out of seats. But that said....it was hilarious and we wont ever do that again. Apparently there actually is a road to phnom penh from here which is a luxury.rnOur guest house here is a palace compared with bangkok. Nice big room with huge fan andour own bathroom and shower. Seriously awesome. Could stay in it all day. The pillows are not hard nor is mattress.rnrnSiem Reap is really interesting. There are the main roads but everything else is sand. Very very hot but a nicer maybe drier hot than Bangkok. We spent the morning in Angkor - the Wat is amazing. From a distance it looks so stunning....not as nice when u get inside but it has alot of beautiful carvings and learning its history was interesting. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day...cost us $10 US aaarrrghhh but he wasvery goodand waited for us however long we were. We then went to the Angkor Thom- that was cool seeing all the faces. Our favourite though was def Ta Prohm - where all of the graphics for Tomb Raider are from. That was soooo cool cos it is the only one left almost untouched. Where its fallen apart the rubble is on the floor. There are tree trunks all through as well. Exactly how tomb raider is.rnNow we just had a really nice lunch and took our first risk health wise. We have tried to avoid fruit and food like that cos we dont want to get sik....but we had a fruit smoothie so will prob spend tomorrow in the toilet hahaha touch wood we dont.rnNot much else to say really....just going to check out the town tonight and the bar at our guest house. Off to see the Cambodian mine museum tomorrow.rnEMAIL and POST MSGS.rnLove Ben and FI xoxo
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