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Today we made our way to Cambodia. Having been warned by Bamba that the bus company weren't the best with their customer service etc, we had our hopes pretty low. The bus itself was fine, comfy enough but the whole journey was crazy driving and beep, beep, beep. Every couple of minutes, no chance to rest. The border crossing seemed like a but if a scam. First of all the driver made it seem like we had to give him our passports so that he could get our visas, total price $40usd. When in fact we could do it ourselves, just meant we had to walk back to Laos (2 minute walk) and say ourselves 3$. 35$ for visa and $2 Laos exit taxi, which was a bit strange. So first off u go and get a health check, they take your temperature and try to charge you a dollar. Then you fill a form and they print you a visa sticker. Then take it to another person to stamp you in. All very complicated compared to the Thai-Laos border which was easy. Anyways we get through, and are starving so order some food but the bus starts beeping. Scared it's going to go without me, I grab Pringles instead and head for the bus. Nope the bus didn't leave for another 30mins but I was scared to get off incase it left, we had Pringles for lunch. We drive for another wee while then we transfer to a mini bus, for the journey to Siem reap. All we notice as we drive is people burning stuff everywhere, it's very dusty and there was a red sunset, pretty cool. We arrive at 8pm and by the time the tuk tuk driver found the hostel, it was nearly 9. Checked into Siem Reap Rooms, which was lovely. Chatted with Amy and Rob for a bit, then went to find some food. Headed down to the Pub Street area, and went to our now favourite place called Pizza boy. We had amok chicken and chicken lak lok, both soo yummy, but I was surprised we could stomach full dinners at 10.30pm. The joys of travel.
The next day was our chill out day. We explored the markets (seen pig heads and hooves, and lots of other meat surrounded by flies, yuck!) Then sampled the best ice-cream we have had in a long time and I got a good coffee. (I took the risk knowing what it does to bowels but I missed coffee soo much; I lasted 5mins and had to literally run to the nearest bathroom, the s***s have yet to subside.) We chilled out for the afternoon in the room as it was far to hot outside then headed to the Skybar to watch sunset, but it was hidden by clouds this evening. O well, the cocktails were good. The Cambodian BBQ for dinner. They gave us 7 different meats eg crocodile, fish, beef, kangaroo, squid, lard to cook with, veg and hot water, plus a BBQ/burner thing to cook it all on. It was a pretty good dinner.
Today we set off bright and early to fulfil the reason to come to Siem Rep; the temples. Set off my mini-bus, drove a terribly narrow road, then arrived at the entrance to pay $20usd for a day pass. They even put our picture on, so you couldn't give it to someone else. The temples we visited included the most impressive Angkor Wat, Angkor thom, Batton, Tomb Raider temple, elephant sketches and a few others along the way. Angkor was was definitely the best, with the Tomb Raider temple more or less just a few ruins. It was a roasting and exhausting day. The guy spoke good English but was hard to listen to, as we had to really concentrate. But it was nice to have a guy to help us understand what we were looking at and about the history. We had lunch at an expensive restaurant, that had rats running through the rafters. Luckily we weren't eating there, and had brought our own sandwiches with us. It was a day complete by having kids torturing you to buy there merchandise. I did feel really sorry for them as they should have been in school but many of them knew this by using the line 'need money for school'. I saw another boy maybe only 3 years old drinking dirty water out of an open tin, poor wee thing. It was just one of the ways we saw the poverty in Cambodia. At the end of the day, we could watch sunset from the top of the temple, we climbed to the top of the hill but there were so many people that we decided we wouldn't bother. If you see sunset anywhere in siem rep you will see the red sun, so we just watched it from the van. We got back and showered, then headed again to pizza boy for a lasagne this time, and tried out the draft beer, not too bad.
It was our last day and again a lazy one. We had breakfast at Peace cafe, a helping the community, hippy kinda place but it had the best fruit and museli I have ever had. And Kenny loved his smoothie. Then went to the Frangipani hotel to lay by the pool. If you spent $7 on food you could use the pool, so got a nice fish amok served in banana leaf and met a lovely lady called Corine, who we chatted to most of the day.
Back to our hotel to watch Sunset from the roof, bright red sun and later on an orange moon. Got the night bus from there to sihanoukville, 8.30pm to 9am. With a stop of about an hour 10mins after we left to 'fix the aircon.' But a lot more comfortable than the last overnight bus so I wasn't complaining.
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