Landing safely in Siem Reap I think it's fair to say we were all very impressed with the airport - the nicest we've seen in Asia anyway! We made our way to the taxi rank to be met by the lovely lovely Mono who took us to a very nice hotel indeed and not at all overpriced. We decided we liked Mono enough to hire him for the Angkor temple tour the next day. In the mean time, Charlotte, Angela and Claire went off exploring a bit whilst lameasses Vickie and I caught up on some sleep!!We all met up again later for a delicious meal (despite one coconut incident but they remade it) and plan for the following day of temples.

Early brekkie at 7.30am then off to the ticket office where they take extremely flattering (smell the sarcasm!) photos of you to print onto the ticket and then on to the first temple of the day, The lady temple (can't remember the actual name but that's it's nickname because of the beautiful carvings)
On the way, Mono told us a bit about Cambodias recent history regarding the Khmer Rouge and and a bit about his childhood - They used to sleep in a hole watching the bullets fly over the top and he said after a while the sound of shooting is like being sung to sleep!!!
Anyway... the lady temple was like something out of Indiana Jones, had been lost in the jungle and was rediscovered a few years ago. There's not a whole lot left but what there was was really cool.
Next on the list was Angkor Thom where there were a gazillion (like, way more than a trillion billion) stairs to climb for a great view if you could be bothered which, of course, we spring chickens were and then nearly died at the top!!

The next temple, Ta Prohm was brilliant, there was a fair bit more left of this one and you could explore everywhere not to mention it was part of the set for Tomb Raider so we lined up for photos by the Angelina tree like the tourists we are!! It's also known as the Temple of Faces as there are faces carved into pretty much every stone.
On the way back to the taxi after this one we got surrounded by kids selling stuff! Vickie, Angela and Charlotte held out really well whereas Claire and I were weak and ended up with various randomness eg flutes!! Another example would be hats made from palmtree leaves, yep, we paid for them!! And, seeing as they'd cost money, we were gonna wear them for the rest of the day until...Claires mysteriously 'broke'!!! Who knows how it happened but I was then alone in my mission to wear the ridiculous hat all day. I may sound sad about this but of course I loved the hat, especially as when kids started laughing and Claire said 'she's crazy', they shouted at her 'No, she's not crazy she's beautiful, our queen'!! haha Kids are so intelligent!
We got to the biggy, the infamous Angkor Wat and the Japanese were all in my face with their cameras, monks wanted photos!! I tried charging the usual $1 but they just laughed and took photos anyway, the life of a celeb eh!
We roamed around but there wasn't so much to explore as alot was in repair. daredevils Vickie and I were naughty enough to cross a no entry barrier for a photo though! haha
The sunset was beautiful, definitely worth seeing. We watched it with this woman all dressed up and who was carrying an elephant toy (from the Baba cartoon) and hanging around with a monk and some other chap. She then asked for a photo with queen deb and co and then Charlotte carried on talking to her up the driveway...turns out, she's the former primeminister of Thailand's wife!! Claim to Asian fame people!!!!!
We had a bit of a nap later then wandered round the night markets and had dinner at the 'dead fish' where they have a 'scary menu'!! We weren't brave enough to try any of it that night but there was some interesting stuff there and we were treated to some traditional Cambodian dancing.

We were pretty dead next day when Mono arrived to take us to the floating village but it was still worth seeing. We took a boat down the river onto the biggest lake in South East Asia and continued to the floating village where people have lived for around 700 years and is now home to around 2000 people! They even have little floating gardens and pig pens and also a restaurant and primary school!!
Another afternoon nap was required as we had to get energy for the big night ahead - St Paddys and also the kiwi's last backpacking night!!
We met Charlotte for dinner, green beer and baby guiness at the Irish bar - where else! - then we continued to a bar where Claire was lucky enough to be offered the services of a young lady for just $5!!! haha Can't believe she turned her down! We moved swiftly to the next place for some crazy dancing action!

Vickie wasn't feeling to hot getting up at 6am and neither was I to say goodbye!!!
It wasn't even that emotional as it didn't sink in at that point thanks to the hangover!! lol
It was set to be an emotional bus ride to Pnom Penh but thankfully not too bad in the end. We found a nice cheap guesthouse with HBO so settled in for the afternoon movie then went out for din dins. Whilst at dinner, a girl with fliers came over and told us about volunteering projects at local orphanages so we decided we'd check it out in a couple of days.

We had an emotional rollercoaster day planned starting with the killing fields. The fields were quite pretty in places nice to walk around with the sound of children playing in the school next door but then... you come across a sheltered square which had contained the bodies of women and children and another full of headless corpses etc and it isn't such a nice places. There were random piles of bones around and bits of clothing that had been found amongst the graving and the killing tree used to smash young childrens and babies heads against to kill them. There were a few that were roped off as they havn't been excavated yet and a remembrance building which is a tower with a tall cabinet full of skulls stored according to age and gender that have been cleaned and preserved.
It was really something to take in.
Next stop was S21, the 'reeducation centre' secure prison used by the Khmer Rouge to torture 'truths' out of people and eventually these people would end up at the killing fields if the torture hadn't already killed them. There were loads of photos of people before torture and after. I think only about 5 people survived S21.
After an emotionally draining day it was great to meet up with Charlotte at the 'Friends' restaurant where they introduce street kids into hospitality. Gotta hand it to them too, they make delicious food!!!

We went to the National museum the following day which wasn't actually that interesting so we headed to the orphanage stopping for 5kg rice on the way. The kids were awesome and the guy running it is great, doing a really good job.
There's only about 8 children actually living there, the rest of the children come from poor families in the area for food, play and english lessons. We had a great time and arranged to go back again the next day for a few hours play.
As it was Sunday, they we literally just played and attempted basic oragami without and glue or books or anything but the wiggly snake went down really well as did braceletts and hairpieces!! lol Very fashionable!
They took us outside to play games and we had no idea what we were playing, just did as we were told pretty much. It was so much fun, we were sad to leave them. Later, we met Charlotte again for dinner and then had a wicked night in a private karaoke room where Claire and I were Angela's nightmare with our cheesy taste in music. We even had a bash at Phantom of the Opera!! Brilliant!!

Thankfully, we had a double seat each on the bus to sihanoukville (South Cambodian beach town) so we could sleep off hangovers. On arriving we had a choice between tuk tuk or motorbike to the hostels. Of course we took the exciting way and jumped on the back of the motorbikes complete with massive backpacks and hand luggage!!! lol We settled in and hit the beach for a tanning session, yay.

The next couple of days were pretty much beach and party with a pool party thrown in there aswell. Unfortunately my bag was stolen along with my camera and all my bank cards - no I wasn't sensible enough to have kept them separately!! Doh, on the bright side though my driving licence was stolen so now I have a reason to pay to change the picture!! lol
On my last day, we went on an Island boat tour which was ace, we walked through a black river on one of the islands which was a bit scary in places as you really didn't know what you were walking on but it was fun. On the way back the crazy german owner cranked the music right up and played everything from old german folk songs to british rock, it was ace!!!
I had to get up early for my bus to Vietnam so I got an early night.
The bus to Saigon was uneventful for me but the poor guy sat next to me had booked to fly out of Saigon at 8pm thinking the bus arrived at %pm...silly nutter, always add on at least 2 hours for Asian time!! We arrived to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) at 9pm!! lol

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