And so we arrived in Cambodia, and yes you've guessed it, we had another disastrous journey! We arranged to go on a 2 day boat trip up the Mekong delta from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh, thinking it might be a nicer alternative to yet another awful bus journey. We could not have been more wrong! On day one after 3 hours on a bus we reached our tiny motorboat to see some sights on the river. First of all was the floating market where all the Vietnamese buy and sell fruit and veg in the morning, however this had already finished so there were just a load of empty boats and some old fruit floating in the water.
Next they took us to a little village where we had to ride old bicycles with flat tyres and no brakes to a restaurant where they served lunch. The food was so expensive and with no other choice we decided to go without. After this, back on the boat to a bus where we spent the next 5 hours. This was not on the schedule, so as you can imagine everyone on the trip who was expecting a nice relaxing tour was fuming. We were dumped in a hotel in Chau Doc, on the Vietnam-Cambodia border, which had no electricity throughout the night, and nothing in the area to see or do. The following day they had us up at 6am to get back on the bus to see more pointless sights, such as a fish farm and tribal people who were obviously putting it on for the tourists. Eventually, after more drama involving a slow boat with a broken engine, and yet another bus journey, we arrived in Phnom Penh $34 lighter and in a foul mood!
Thankfully Phnom Penh was great. We arrived at a really good time, Independence day followed by 3 days of water festivals to celebrate the end of the rainy season. The city was buzzing and the atmosphere was brilliant, we couldn't have been there at a better time. We jumped on a tuk tuk to the lakeside where we checked ourselves in to a floating guesthouse. It was actually built over the lake and flooded every night when, like clockwork, there was a torrential downpour!
After a massive lie in the next day we strolled along the riverside to watch all the provinces of
Cambodia compete in boat races. The streets were full of locals who were all having a great time cheering on their teams and getting involved in the festivities. The moment we arrived here we noticed the difference in the people, they are all much friendlier than in Vietnam and China.
That night we sat at a roof top bar, treated ourselves to a bottle of sangria, and watched the fireworks displays and general hustle and bustle on the streets below.
The next day, feeling recovered and ready for some culture, we headed to the S21 museum, which is where people were held prisoner during the Khmer Rouge takeover in the 70s. The 4 buildings were originally a school, which they turned into torture chambers, which has now become a museum. You can walk around it and go in the tiny cells, and even see the scratch marks in the walls, whether these are real or not i don't know. The whole thing was pretty horrific; they had photos up of all the people that were taken there during that time, too many to look through properly, but there were men and women of all ages, including young children. After the S21 museum we were taken to the killing fields, which is were people were taken by the truck load to be killed. In the middle of the field is a memorial building containing items of clothing and human skulls that were found over the years in the field. As you can imagine it was an emotional day, much like the War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh.
Next they took us to a little village where we had to ride old bicycles with flat tyres and no brakes to a restaurant where they served lunch. The food was so expensive and with no other choice we decided to go without. After this, back on the boat to a bus where we spent the next 5 hours. This was not on the schedule, so as you can imagine everyone on the trip who was expecting a nice relaxing tour was fuming. We were dumped in a hotel in Chau Doc, on the Vietnam-Cambodia border, which had no electricity throughout the night, and nothing in the area to see or do. The following day they had us up at 6am to get back on the bus to see more pointless sights, such as a fish farm and tribal people who were obviously putting it on for the tourists. Eventually, after more drama involving a slow boat with a broken engine, and yet another bus journey, we arrived in Phnom Penh $34 lighter and in a foul mood!
Thankfully Phnom Penh was great. We arrived at a really good time, Independence day followed by 3 days of water festivals to celebrate the end of the rainy season. The city was buzzing and the atmosphere was brilliant, we couldn't have been there at a better time. We jumped on a tuk tuk to the lakeside where we checked ourselves in to a floating guesthouse. It was actually built over the lake and flooded every night when, like clockwork, there was a torrential downpour!
After a massive lie in the next day we strolled along the riverside to watch all the provinces of
Cambodia compete in boat races. The streets were full of locals who were all having a great time cheering on their teams and getting involved in the festivities. The moment we arrived here we noticed the difference in the people, they are all much friendlier than in Vietnam and China.That night we sat at a roof top bar, treated ourselves to a bottle of sangria, and watched the fireworks displays and general hustle and bustle on the streets below.
The next day, feeling recovered and ready for some culture, we headed to the S21 museum, which is where people were held prisoner during the Khmer Rouge takeover in the 70s. The 4 buildings were originally a school, which they turned into torture chambers, which has now become a museum. You can walk around it and go in the tiny cells, and even see the scratch marks in the walls, whether these are real or not i don't know. The whole thing was pretty horrific; they had photos up of all the people that were taken there during that time, too many to look through properly, but there were men and women of all ages, including young children. After the S21 museum we were taken to the killing fields, which is were people were taken by the truck load to be killed. In the middle of the field is a memorial building containing items of clothing and human skulls that were found over the years in the field. As you can imagine it was an emotional day, much like the War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh.
We left Phnom Penh after a few days to beat the crowds down to Sihanoukville, with no such luck. Sihanoukville is a lovely beach resort on the south coast of the country, a popular holiday destination for Cambodians, especially during the festival. Unfortunately, it is also a popular destination for sex tourists, but thankfully they go to another beach so it wasn't too obvious to us. With loads of backpackers hostels dotted along the beach we managed to find one with free accommodation, no catch, completely free! Completely understandable when we went into the dorm and saw where we were expected to stay! It was fine for 2 nights until Keeley woke up with a cockroach crawling over her and we decided to find somewhere else to stay, and when we found somewhere and saw we had sheets, a clean towel and a bathroom that wasn't outside, we thought we'd found heaven!
Sihanoukville was amazing, we had beautiful sunshine everyday and the beaches were perfect, white sand and lined with palm trees. It really did feel like paradise. My favourite part of the day was at about 5.30, when we'd plonk ourselves into a bucket chair, order an ice cold beer for 50 cents, and watch the sunset over the islands in the distance. And then... once the sun went down, the music was pumping and the bars that lined the beach would start the happy hours! The nightlife here was brilliant, and thankfully we met so many people, every night was better than the one before. 
One day we booked a booze cruise. Leaving at 10am and having a Jagerbomb for breakfast on the crammed boat, we headed to an island for cliff jumping, then to Bamboo island where they fired up a BBQ, mixed the cocktails and blared out the reggae! We met some really cool people that day who we ended up spending all our time with. For the first time since we've been away we stayed put for 8 days and relaxed in the sunshine, feeling like we deserved it after spending so long living by our alarm clock.
Sihanoukville was amazing, we had beautiful sunshine everyday and the beaches were perfect, white sand and lined with palm trees. It really did feel like paradise. My favourite part of the day was at about 5.30, when we'd plonk ourselves into a bucket chair, order an ice cold beer for 50 cents, and watch the sunset over the islands in the distance. And then... once the sun went down, the music was pumping and the bars that lined the beach would start the happy hours! The nightlife here was brilliant, and thankfully we met so many people, every night was better than the one before. 
One day we booked a booze cruise. Leaving at 10am and having a Jagerbomb for breakfast on the crammed boat, we headed to an island for cliff jumping, then to Bamboo island where they fired up a BBQ, mixed the cocktails and blared out the reggae! We met some really cool people that day who we ended up spending all our time with. For the first time since we've been away we stayed put for 8 days and relaxed in the sunshine, feeling like we deserved it after spending so long living by our alarm clock.
One day when the weather wasn't great us and a few others rented motos and went on a ride along the coast, going to all the beaches that we hadn't seen before. Along the way, we 
randomly came across a load of monkeys sitting on a fence, they were hilarious! They stared at us and came over until we gave them all the food we had....we had to throw crisps to get them away. Then the big mamma came and that was when we freaked out, jumped on the motos and sped off! I didn't really want to get on the wrong side of her, she was huge! We then went to a snake and crocodile farm... it was pretty small and pretty crap, a waste of $3, but Keeley and i got to hold a Burmese python! Didn't even flinch...
randomly came across a load of monkeys sitting on a fence, they were hilarious! They stared at us and came over until we gave them all the food we had....we had to throw crisps to get them away. Then the big mamma came and that was when we freaked out, jumped on the motos and sped off! I didn't really want to get on the wrong side of her, she was huge! We then went to a snake and crocodile farm... it was pretty small and pretty crap, a waste of $3, but Keeley and i got to hold a Burmese python! Didn't even flinch...
From Sihanoukville we decided to arrange our Laos visa..big mistake. It cost us 54 dollars and was due to be back at the travel agency in 3 days, so we thought instead we would collect it when we got the next bus... So, when we eventually decided it was time to move on we reluctantly left Sihanoukville and took a 10 hour bus to Siem Reap. But beforehand, we had to collect our passports, but were they there?! The guy told us the taxi had broken down the previous day and so our passports were stuck in Phnom Penh. Thankfully our bus to Siem Reap stopped in Phnom Penh en route. But... we had no idea where we had to go to meet the guy who had them. Eventually we agreed that a little Cambodian guy would come on the bus with us and help us pick them up in the 20 minute stopover between buses. We were not at all satisfied with this but had no choice as we had no passports and were in the completely wrong place to do anything about it. When we arrived in Phnom Penh it was all go... i left Keeley with the bags stopping the next bus from going anywhere and followed this little guy who spoke no English to a petrol station, where we found another guy sitting on a moped waving our passports in the air! I love how they have no concept of our important these things are, but as always, it all worked out in the end!
When we arrived we absolutely loved it, it wasn't at all what we were expecting. The main part of town where we were staying was really pretty, with loads of bars and restuarants that were lit up at night in a way that would make you think you somewhere a million miles away, not somewhere as poor as Cambodia. The plan was to stay just long enough to see the temples. but instead we decided to stay an extra night.
There are markets galore in Siem Reap, selling all sorts of crappy souveniers and trinkets. I did buy a few things made of Cambodian silk for a few dollars, and although i could have bought more i just don't have the space in my backpack. Also in the market was a place where you can have a 'fish foot massage', where you put your feet in a pool of water full of tiny fish and they eat the dead skin off your feet! It was completely gross but i gave it a go before it freaked me out so much i had to get out... i only lasted a couple of minutes. What a wierd experience! One thing i wish i had done was got a 'seeing hands' massage by blind people, but by this point we'd spent too much in Siem Reap so i had to give it a miss, although now I've heard the massages in Laos are just as good.
There were enough restaurants here that we could have gone to a different one 3 times a day and been there for weeks. Also the nightlife was booming; the bars were packed full of backpackers all night long. We actually bumped into one of our mates who we met in Beijing and then again in Hong Kong, which was an added bonus!
Last day in Siem Reap we headed to the temples of Angkor for sunset, which was really impressive. The temples are really beautiful, but after 4 hours i think we'd had enough. Some people get a week pass to see them all, but there are just so many you'd be walking for 12 hours a day, everyday. We got our tuk tuk driver to take us to the main temples, which are Angkor Wat, and Ta Prohm where one of the Tomb Raider movies was filmed.
Overall i've loved Cambodia, it is my favourite place so far. It is so chilled out and there is so much to see and do. To top it off we've met some brilliant people who i expect we will be meeting up with along the way.
As usual i could go on typing forever, but at the moment we are in a place called Kratie en route to Laos and the electricity goes off in most places at night, so i have to stop myself!
There are markets galore in Siem Reap, selling all sorts of crappy souveniers and trinkets. I did buy a few things made of Cambodian silk for a few dollars, and although i could have bought more i just don't have the space in my backpack. Also in the market was a place where you can have a 'fish foot massage', where you put your feet in a pool of water full of tiny fish and they eat the dead skin off your feet! It was completely gross but i gave it a go before it freaked me out so much i had to get out... i only lasted a couple of minutes. What a wierd experience! One thing i wish i had done was got a 'seeing hands' massage by blind people, but by this point we'd spent too much in Siem Reap so i had to give it a miss, although now I've heard the massages in Laos are just as good.
There were enough restaurants here that we could have gone to a different one 3 times a day and been there for weeks. Also the nightlife was booming; the bars were packed full of backpackers all night long. We actually bumped into one of our mates who we met in Beijing and then again in Hong Kong, which was an added bonus!
Last day in Siem Reap we headed to the temples of Angkor for sunset, which was really impressive. The temples are really beautiful, but after 4 hours i think we'd had enough. Some people get a week pass to see them all, but there are just so many you'd be walking for 12 hours a day, everyday. We got our tuk tuk driver to take us to the main temples, which are Angkor Wat, and Ta Prohm where one of the Tomb Raider movies was filmed.
Overall i've loved Cambodia, it is my favourite place so far. It is so chilled out and there is so much to see and do. To top it off we've met some brilliant people who i expect we will be meeting up with along the way.As usual i could go on typing forever, but at the moment we are in a place called Kratie en route to Laos and the electricity goes off in most places at night, so i have to stop myself!
