The journey to Siem Reap was long and boring. We arrived into Phnom Penh late in the evening on the Sunday and as Phnom Penh seems to have a continuos rush hour it meant it took us over an hour to get from the outskirts to our drop off point in the centre.

The traffic in Cambodia is terrifying, people drive on the wrong side of the road all the time and there are no rules. We see thousands of people riding scooters with no helmets and 4 or 5 people crammed on including babies. It is not unusual to see children as young as 8 driving scooters on their own. Unfortunately we saw a young man dead on the road on our way into Phnom Penh, he had been hit whilst trying to cross the road. I imagine this happens too frequently. Terrifying really.

We had managed to find a hotel that was almost the same price as the hostel we had stayed in on our first visit to PP and it was lovely. When we arrived they upgraded us to a huge room for free and I very much enjoyed having air conditioning and a sealed room after over a week in 'rustic' accommodation!

The next day we were up early for our next bus to Siem Reap. We had somehow managed to get a bus with the locals which was nice and Esben befriended a lovely middle aged Cambodian woman who now lived in Texas ... I had to make sure she knew he was taken ;-)! The road was absolutely terrible, by far the worst we have experienced in Cambodia. It was unbelievably bumpy for the first 4 hours then it decreased to moderate bumps for the rest of the way.

As usual when we arrived the bus was surrounded by a swarm of buzzing motorbike and tuktuk drivers who will barely let you step off the bus. After a discussion with a tuktuk driver about the distance to the hotel, he said 6km and I knew for a fact it was 900m, he agreed to take us the 900m to our hotel for a good price.

Our hotel was absolutely amazing. The room was huge and nicely decorated with air conditioning and a massive bathroom. There was a pool surrounded by a well kept garden and a restaurant that served the best breakfast of our Asian adventure. It was excellent value and we couldn't believe our luck. It was potentially so cheap as it was a 10 minute tuktuk ride out of town. This wasn't an issue as they provided a free on-demand tuktuk service and even leant us a phone to call when we wanted picking up again.

The first afternoon we spent planning and booking Myanmar as it is coming into high season and we realised it may be sensible to get some booking done before we arrive.

The next day (after an accidental 11 hour sleep) we hired bikes from the hotel and cycled to the Ankor Wat temple. This was a magical experience and I can't describe how overwhelmed I was when we saw it. It's crumbling architecture twinned with the plants and trees that grow among it made it look like something straight out of the jungle book. There are even some monkeys! We spent a good 2 hours wandering around and taking photos before cycling to the Bayon Temple. This again was a breathtaking temple and covered in faces carved into the building blocks. Every corner you turned you would be looked down upon by these huge mysterious faces. I absolutely loved it.

We had a look around a couple more temples then cycled back to the hotel as it was 4pm and we hadn't really thought about lunch, hunger was taking hold. In the evening we had dinner as we didn't have the energy to go into town on empty stomachs.

The next day we cycled the larger loop at Ankor seeing more temples which I didn't consider to be quite as beautiful as Angor Wat but it was lovely to cycle through the paddy fields and forests. I would highly recommend anyone going to Ankor Wat to hire a bike, it's quite far but it's flat and there's not much traffic.

In the evening we happened upon a lovely Italian restaurant in the back streets of Siem Reap. We met the owner who was from Italy and made all the pasta at the restaurant from scratch using recipes his mother had taught him. We had some delicious stuffed pasta and a bottle of red wine followed by a delicious chocolate cake! Greedy but delicious and we needed it after all that cycling. We went back again the next evening as it was so good.

On our last day in Siem Reap we were suffering from sore bottoms and were a bit tired so decided to relax and walk into the town for a coffee. In the evening we were back at the Italian and then home for bed as we had another early start on Friday to catch the boat from Siem Reap to Battambang.

We are on the boat now and it is a fantastic experience. I will blog again soon.

Alice
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