As we took our seats on what was to be our bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, around 5 hours away, we were pretty relaxed. Rather unexpectedly, It seemed ok. There was no live stock that we could see (or smell). The bus looked like it was actually made at some point in the last 50 years. There was even a TV. And it worked. They were showing Mr. Bean and guess what, the locals laughed more than we did. They loved it bless them. Yep, its safe to say, in that moment, we were content. Well, as content as you can be with anything in South East Asia. We sat back and began chuckling heartily to the Antics of Rowan Atkinson's most famous character as the bus edged out into the line of traffic along the main road.

A short while into the journey however, events took a turn for the worse. We should have known. Firstly, the two giant Germans seated in front of us took it upon themselves to attempt to shatter my kneecaps. Well, more accurately they decided to recline their seats, halving our already meagre amount of legroom and almost affording me a permanent limp in the process. Thanks a lot.

As we were sat muttering (under our breath obviously - they were big lads remember) about the 'typical Germans', we were suddenly distracted by a strange sound coming from the front of the bus. It sounded a bit like:

"Hoccchhhhhhhhhh…THUU!"

We soon discovered that it was the driver and his assistant, who was seated in the front section with him, collecting all the phlegm that they could muster, and then launching it out of the nearest window. It wasn't just them either, oh no, there were passengers joining in.

God help anyone walking past the bus at the wrong moment.

One minute they're happily strolling along without a care in the world and then - WHAM!! Greeny in the side of the head. The speed they were dispatching them out of those windows as well, they would have done some serious damage.

As well as the puddles of snot being dispatched, one of the locals sat just behind us also had a small gift of their own in store. They actually got off about half way and when they did, there it was, on their seat. A bag. It was full of sick. And it stunk.

And then Mr. Bean went off and extremely loud Cambodian pop music came on in its place.

So there we were. Feet wedged to the floor beneath the solid seats of the Germans in front (nicely stretched out by now I might add), with the sound of people gobbing out of the windows in one ear, the only kind of music worse than Vietnamese in the other, topped off with the sweet stench of vomit emanating from the seat behind.

Have you ever heard the phrase 'never judge a book by its cover'? At that moment it seemed particularly appropriate.

Whilst were on the subject of books, for any of you readers out there, I spent most of the above journey reading an excellent book by the name of Shantaram. Impressively written it details the true story of an Australian author turned bank robber who escaped from prison and fled to the slums of Bombay before joining the mafia. Id definitely say grab a copy if you get the chance.

Anyhow, eventually we pulled in at the Siem Reap bus depot. It was a dusty site a little way out of town. Now what are the chances? This time however, we were ok, no problem, we had arranged a pick-up with the hotel we had booked the night before (the Angkor Spirit Palace).

After standing with our bags for ten minutes or so waiting for the expected pickup the tuk-tuk drivers were circling. They sensed what we were starting to fear. We had been forgotten. Just as we were beginning negotiations with the circling vultures however, our lift duly arrived, if a touch late.

The driver explained the reason for his lateness as we headed off towards the hotel, which was situated a short distance from the main centre of the town. It duly transpired that our driver was not well. He had, the previous day, been struck in the face. By a bird. As his black eye confirmed. Unfortunately for him however, he was made to come and collect us following the driver - who had actually been assigned to pick us up - not being well himself. I believe the technical term for his current condition was: wasted. Rather than coming to get us he had decided to hit the ale. Our driver laughed at this point. So did we. I wasn't sure what I was laughing at more, the story itself or the fact that one of the hotel employees had actually told it to us. Only in Asia.

The hotel itself was straight out of the top drawer. Easily the nicest place we had stayed since setting off in March of this year. The room was really nice, luxurious even. Soft mattress. Even softer pillows. Real duvet. There was a pool as well, which was a nice relief from the fierce heat. That wasn't the best part though. The sculptures that made up much of the building itself were worth staying for alone. The architect behind the hotel had designed it to resemble the temples of Angkor and he did an alright job. You almost felt as if you were spending the night in one.

And, get this, we also got the room on the cheap. Still a bit over budget at 14GBP per night for the room, but a lot less than the 35-45 they usually charge (We booked through hostelworld.com).

As we checked in, the slight, ferrety looking manager with feet too large for his body, leaned across and, in a hushed tone instructed us to:

"…keep how much you pay for the room to yourselves, otherwise the other guests will be annoyed If they find out."

Needless to say Aimee was not amused by this show of rudeness.

The number one reason for visiting Siem Reap is undoubtedly the world famous temples of Angkor a short distance away and it was these temples that we arranged to spend the following day visiting, hiring one of the hotel cars and a driver for what worked out at around $30, including taking in the morning sunrise at the main attraction, Angkor Wat.

At 05:30 we departed the hotel with our driver for the day. He was short and extremely softly spoken. To the point of struggling to hear what he was saying. He was a nice guy though.

His name: Nut.

I kid you not. Nut.

What a fantastic name. It must surely be on any top ten list of 'names you wish you had'. We couldn't not like him with a name like that.

As we arrived at the area of the temples, around 15 minutes from the centre of the city, our first task was to get a day pass from the ticket office. At $20 each it was a little pricey but surely worth it. You have a picture taken and then printed on your ticket in order to prevent anyone else 'borrowing' it. Much the same as football should have been doing years ago in order to prevent the shocking extortion that occurs at every single major game and final around Europe - but ill leave that debate for another time…

Anyway, Nut (it makes me smile even writing it) kindly dropped us off in the car park opposite the entrance to the great Angkor Wat. It was a little before 06:00 and still dark and refreshingly cool.

Even at this hour it was also incredibly busy, with hordes of people filing across the rectangular moat surrounding the area. People were arriving in mini-buses, tuk-tuk's, even on elephants.

Along with the throng we crossed the moat and entered along the giant sandstone blocks, through a large entrance before finding ourselves stood on the steps leading down to the causeway directly in front of Angkor Wat. At that moment you could just see the shadowy outline of the temple on the dark blue skyline but as the sun slowly made its way into view over the next 30 minutes, eventually illuminating the temple in a warm orange glow, the sight became increasingly impressive. Not even the scaffolding that is evident around stretches of the perimeter could take away from the view.

Walking around Angkor Wat itself you begin to realise just how vast it really is, and in turn, what a monumental achievement its construction would be in any century, let alone the 11th. It is primarily due to these huge proportions that it is (thankfully) still possible to find yourself some space and privacy to take in the surroundings, as a number of people we passed were doing, laying in huge open stone windows, in the morning sun, reading a book. Not a bad way to start the day. For such a busy place it also seemed remarkably quiet, which was a nice surprise.

After around 3 hours of wandering around we ambled back out to the car park and the waiting Nut. A short drive away was the former fortified city of Angkor Thom and within its boundaries (among others) sit the temples of Bayon and Baphoun.

Bayon in particular was another of our favourites, much smaller in scale than Angkor Wat but just as impressive in its own way. There are a number of steep flights of steps that lead up to the different levels of this stacked temple. As you make your way up to the third in particular you become aware of the many sets of eyes and faces carved into the stone and staring back at you from every direction. There are 216 of them in total. All smiling and virtually all still in good condition.

Ta Prohm, or the Tomb Raider temple as it is often called, was probably the most atmospheric of those that we visited. The ruins of Ta Prohm give a good impression of what many of the temples would have looked like when they were re-discovered by Henri Mouhot in 1868 after being abandoned and eventually overtaken by the jungle. Huge trees appeared to be growing out of the temple itself, with complex and giant root systems intertwined around the stone. It was like being in the set of a movie. It was also my personal favourite.

There really was so much to see and try and take in that it seems almost impossible to compress into words. The above gives the briefest of ideas but in addition, the much smaller temple of Banteay Srei as well as the terraces of elephants and of the lepers are also worth a mention purely for the amazing sculpture that is evident.

For the record, the original plan, as we set out for the day was to see both the sunrise and the sunset at the temples. We never made the sunset. After around 11 hours of exploration in the unforgiving heat, by around 17:00, we declared ourselves as 'templed out'. In other words - we were knackered. The air conditioned room and oh so soft bed was by this point a thrilling prospect. The ever willing Nut duly delivered us.

Now, so you know, the centre of Siem Reap is actually quite small. It has more of a mid-sized town feel to it than that of a city. Besides the main tourist areas at the heart, many of the roads are still crude dirt tracks lined with simple corrugated iron and wood huts. The street names around the centre are also ingeniously descriptive. There is no need for maps if your looking for a watering hole for example. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you have a street. This street is lined primarily with establishments serving beverages, of the alcoholic variety. Premises of which, some would describe, as public houses. Also known as pubs. What, therefore, do you recon would make a pretty decent name for that particular road?

Ill give you a moment to process that in your mind.

Take your time.

Well, how about: Pub Street.

What fantastically simple logic. Pubs or no pubs though, wouldn't you just love to live on a street called that.

By 19:00 we were taking a seat at the Angkor What? Bar, situated about half way down the aforementioned Pub Street. Along with Ash and Becca (of whom this was to be our last night with due to her leaving for Thailand in the morning) we were also joined by a friend of Ash's (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me) and in turn, her mutual friend, an instantly likeable Russian of slight build by the name of Sascha. Sascha wore a pair of those glasses with no lenses. For the record he was also from St.Petersburg.

For the majority of the night, armed with several buckets of Vodka and Whisky, we set about teaching Sascha the popular drinking game, Bridge. As we had discovered on a few occasions in Australia, Bridge is definitely one of the more effective drinking games (if you know what I mean) - especially if you're the one dealing and you manage to sneakily rig the deck. Following the third game there were reports of Sascha "giving it some" on the dance floor of the bar. By himself. That was the last we saw of the young Russian.

Copious amounts of potent cocktails in buckets. Free T-Shirts. Drunken chin-wag with a Yank claiming to be good mates with Matt Dillon. Offers from said Yank of a free night 'on him' the next day. Signatures and stupid comments scrawled on wall of bar. All things considered, it was a good night.

I can only describe the next day however, as, well, odd.

I shall explain why.

Before you read on, bear in mind that the window to our room also had shutters. Effective ones.

We got back the previous night at around 01:00. Not too late at all. Respectable if you ask me.

The next thing I remember, I found myself stirring. I could hear Russian voices. Talking outside our door. Well, shouting would be a better description. They obviously had no respect for other people. Typical ignorant Russians, I thought as I considered opening the door and abusing them.

As I opened my eyes it was still dark. I glanced at my watch. It was 3:15.

"Christ, I've only been in bed two hours…" I thought as I attempted to force myself back to sleep

Aimee was still out cold at this point.

As I was awake I decided to make a quick pilgrimage to the bathroom. En route however, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be light filtering under the foot of our door. I couldn't remember a light outside our room. Interesting.

Out of curiosity I opened the door. It was bright. It was hot. The sky was blue. For a few seconds I stood there, completely and utterly confused and bewildered.

And then it hit me. It was 3:15 alright. Only, 3:15 in the afternoon rather than the morning. We had been asleep for about 14 hours. At that point I was extremely glad I decided against my original plan of lamenting the 'ignorant Russians'.

We did eventually emerge from the darkness of our room into yet another crystal clear and hot day in south east Asia. Frankly we didn't do a great deal though, either today or the following day before we left for Laos.

To summarise, we tasted our first traditional Cambodian Amok curry in a small restaurant in an alley set back from Pub Street. It was glorious. Instantly our favourite Cambodian dish. We lazed around the pool. We booked our next bus. We witnessed a strange man casually photographing the local hookers. We also had the legendary Nut reminiscing about how Siem Reap used to be, before the influx of tourism. The "bad times" as he referred to them as. Apparently, Nut continued, there were "many bad troubles with the drunk men making boom booms…".

We never completely clarified exactly what the 'boom booms' were, but from his tone of voice I decided it must have been bad.

I was sad to be bidding farewell to Nut (and our bed) as we set off again the following day. One 'deluxe' bus and one sleeper train (from Bangkok) were set to deliver us to Vientiane.

Next stop, Laos…