After travelling through 3 countries in 24 hours, we couldn’t wait to get to our accommodation in SR. We decided to treat ourselves a little and booked into a nice boutique hotel (or rather the B&B part of it!) which had a swimming pool – this was actually the only thing that got Dan through the journey. After 3 hours of mud roads from the border we arrived in town, checked into our room, had a very long needed shower and headed out for food.
The difference between Thailand and Cambodia was apparent from just crossing the border, by far the poorest country we’ve been to yet, however Cambodia seems to have a lot of character, the people are really friendly and always seem to have a smile.
Day one we decided a chill out day was needed so we laid around the pool most of the day, reading and catching up on emails/jobs/flats etc (just over a week until we arrive in Oz – hmmmm not quite ready to go back to work!) That afternoon we headed to Angkor to see sunset from the top of the hill, as described in the book as the best place to go. The sunset was ok, not helped by a light cloud cover and the temple being in the wrong direction?! Obviously all the best pics are at sunrise – makes sense now.
Day two we hired bikes and headed out to make full use of our 3 day pass. Angkor Wat (the main temple at Angkor) is truly amazing. Its size and grandeur is fascinating as is the thought of how the Khmers managed to build the thing all those years ago. That evening we met up with Cat & Adam and had a few beers – why break the habit eh, I think I can count on one hand the number of days we haven’t had a drink since leaving home! Actually this is the most we’ve had in a while as the pictures show.
Day three was a slow morning and another tour around the remaining main temples we hadn’t covered off the previous day. Our plan was to see sunset from the hot air balloon at Angkor, unfortunately it was a bit too windy so we couldn’t go up – will have to do it in Oz instead. That night we retired early as we would use the following morning to see sunrise at Angkor. A 5am rise (Jesus!) was needed for the tuk-tuk to Angkor. Again there was a thick cloud covering, but some of the pictures were great!
Siem Reap has been fantastic, another place where we could stay longer, unfortunately time isn’t on our side – 3 months have gone very quickly. So now we are on the bus heading to the capital Phnom Penh for a few days before heading down south to the beach in Cambodia.
One note to Adele: Who was the British PM before Margaret Thatcher?!
