So after negotiating the Thai-Cambodia border with the help of our night in shining armour Aussie Graham, who'd been through many times before, we arrived into Siem Reap. Siem Reap is home to many wonderful temples including the famous Angkor Wat temple, which we decided to save till the last day. We hired some bikes and cycled 11km to the smaller Roulos Temples which are not that mind blowing but the journey to them all down tree ligned streets was very nice. The second day we asked Sambo the Tuk-tuk driver to take us to the floating villages and the slightly bigger temples on the grand circuit. Unfortunately the floating willages were a big daissapointment, considering we spent 15 dollars each and got ripped off buying pencils for orphans... The rest of the day made up for the boat ride though and the icing on the cake was seeing the sunset from Pre Roup temple. Hiring a tuk-tuk for the day had been fun but we still preferred our freedom (Sambo still took us to his mates slightly overpriced food stall for the commission) and so the third day we hired bikes again and set off to explore the bigger temples... This surely was the highlight and was worth leaving till the last day. We started at Ta Prohm temple, the smallest of the 3 we visited that day. The whole site is in pretty good condition considering it had been abandoned for so many years and what we found really fascinating was the way trees had grown right up through the walls and almost become a part of the building... Next on our venture were the Baphoun and Bayon temples. Baphoun is a large pyramid structure and has fantastic views from the top but the Bayon was the top hitter for us with its large mountainous design and mystical faces carved into the towers. Finally the "Pièce de résistance" Angkor Wat which took us several hours to get round due to the sheer scale of it. It is such a grand structure even from the approach you get a feeling of the might of the kings who built this place and the power of the religion. We read that the temple is designed like a mountain walk so you have to climb steep parts and step over large steps all of which added to the experience of exploring Angkor Wat. We stayed here till sunset and unfortunately my camera had run out of battery so we only had the smaller one to take pictures on but all the same it was an amazing day...

After the energetic trip round Siem Reap we spent a day at the slower paced town of Battambang. There isn't much about this town but there is an old French railroad in pretty poor shape that locals travel along on Bamboo Trains. We had a little trip on one of these make shift trains and found it really funny when we encountered another train coming the opposite way. With only one track, one train had to be dismantled and dumped on the side while the other one went by. In the evening we found probably the only club in Battambang the "Sky Disco" for a bit of a night out. After seeing all the underage teenagers drinking coka-cola and dancing relentlessly to poorly mixed, electro house music we called it a night and headed back for an early start the next day when we left for Phnom Penh...

We arrived late into Phnom Penh and not much was open or near to the hotel we'd booked. We eventually found somewhere to eat and decided we would move nearer the town the following day. Once settled in a new (cheaper and friendlier) hotel the next morning we headed to see the Palace, temple and museum in the town. As per usual we were hounded by tuk-tuk drivers asking where we wanted to go and telling us everywhere was closed and they'd take us somewhere that was open. We chose to ignore them (as usually they lie to your face) but found that the palace was actually closed, we still resisted the temptation of getting in a tuk-tuk and found that the museum was open so spent the afternoon looking round the Khmer relics and artefacts out of the mid day sun. We'd seen the Palace reopened at 2:00 so we got a bite to eat and walked back for a tour of the palace. The building and grounds are so peaceful and ornate it was worth ignoring the tuk-tuks and going there. The Silver pagoda is one of the highlights of the temple which houses an emerald Buddah statue and a life size Buddah made of gold and encrusted in diamonds. Our final day in Phnom Penh before heading to the coast of Cambodia was probably the most emotional as we went to visit the Tuol Sleung Genocide museum and the Killing Fields... Under the rule of the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Cambodia was thrown into a terrible dictatorship more sinister than Hitler's Nazi Germany. Pol Pot ruled the country and decided he wanted to make Cambodia a country of peasants (mainly as they were uneducated and wouldn't be able to overthrow him). To achieve this dreadful goal he executed educated Cambodians and anyone who wasn't a peasant on mass and the Tuol Sleung School was one of the prisons he created to torture and murder his own people. It's one of those places you have to see but it is very depressing and there are so many reminders of what went on there such as photos and even blood in some of the cells still. After the museum we had a look round the Killing Fields where even more people were massacred and thrown into mass graves. Even more disturbing was seeing the killing tree where apparently Pol Pot's men would smash babies heads to kill them before tossing them into the graves with their mothers. As you can probably tell just from reading this it's not a nice thought of what went on there but in stark contrast the area is very beautiful with butterflies flying around the fields and a peaceful lake just beyond. Needless to say we were ready to have some relaxing time and so our next stop would be Sihanoukville on the coast with bars and beaches...