Having spent most of my time in Bangkok alone, I was happy to meet Freddie (19, England) as we boarded the "VIP" bus to Siem Reap. It was also better to not be alone for scam aversion - but it didn't appear to help us on a day when the World was conspiring to scam us. The coach was pretty strange, with the back being a bit like a limousine with long bench type seats which meant we could sleep properly - as long as i curled my legs out of the way of the dripping air con! There were only 5 of us on the bus going to Cambodia and one other man doing a visa run, so we got to know the other 3 too as we all debated what to believe and what to not do. There were two German girls - Barbara and Helga - just going to Siem Reap and then back to Thailand and Yoholi, from Israel.

The first scam I was expecting, when the guy on the bus tried to get us to give him our passports and the money to sort the visas out for us. We refused (I had been told to when I booked the ticket!) as they charged more this way. When we got near the border however, we were confronted with another woman who said she was from the Consulate who tried to do the same thing! We were already worn down from arguing for half an hour with the guys on the bus, so in the end we agreed, but insisted one of us go with her to get the visas. The next time I looked around she was gone - passports too! Luckily she came back, visas complete, but we had paid $5 to shut her up. At the border we were convinced by the man taking us through to get more money out - this didn't bother me as I was coming back to Thailand anyway, but the currency exchange on the other side was obviously a scam so we also lost some money doing that (again after arguing for ages we didn't want to and in the end changing the bare minimum to shut him up). We pooled together and got a taxi from the border to Siem Reap, as it was much quicker than the bus and more comfortable, despite having 4 in the back. When we got to the outskirts of the town we were dropped off and picked up by free tuk-tuks as the taxi wasn't licensed so wasn't allowed to drive in! The tuk-tuk drivers took us to a guest house they had friends at - obviously - but it was actually really nice and Yoholi and I shared a room to cut costs. We upset the tuk-tuk drivers a bit by deciding not to hire them for the temples the following day, but Helga, Barbara and I had decided to hire bikes and cycle instead.

Siem Reap was a lovely town, I could have spent much longer there. In the warm evenings it had the kind of atmosphere of a chilled Mediterranean town with loads of tables outside the restaurants and a relaxed feeling. We went out for pizza and then visited the amazing blue pumpkin ice-cream shop down the road - Freddie had liquorice and marshmallow which was nicer than it sounds! Then we made the compulsory visit to the Angkor What? pub where people have written all over the walls and where they offer "Angkor What?" -shirts if you buy 2 buckets... On the way home the Germans and I got lost at a round about where all the exits looked the same and after wandering around aimlessly for half an hour enlisted the help of a tuk-tuk driver to get us home - even though it can only have been 5 minutes walk (in the right direction!)

The following morning we headed off over the river, this time taking note of what our exit of the round about looked like, and headed for the nearest bike hire place. The bikes were basic, but worked well enough so we headed off in the direction of the temples. At some point on the 30min or so cycle we realised we weren't going in completely the right direction and we ended up at the first ticket check point without having gone past the ticket office - which meant a 4km cycle in the opposite direction to get these. Unfortunately this coincided with a torrential down pour so by the time we got to the office we were completely drenched! Once we'd attempted unsuccessfully to dry off we headed back down the road to Angkor Wat, which was the first stop of the temples. This was amazing and loads bigger than I expected. There were the obvious hoards of children selling things at the entrance and I was already growing used to the " laydeee you buy, you buy?" being pleaded at me all around. If that failed you would get the inevitable "you come back, if you buy, you buy from me - promise?". They also liked to show off their knowledge and I had one boy of about 10 tell me the last 4 British Prime Ministers in reverse order and the capital cities of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales - I still did not need any of his books though.

I don't really know how to describe the "Wat" except for that it was really big, really old, and left you wondering how on Earth the could construct something like it in the 10th Century... More impressive however was the Bayon, which we visited next and had ridiculously steep steps up to the middle that were just asking for accidents. Cycling between the temples was really beautiful, between tall trees, with monkeys running around. The only near incident being when I was almost knocked off my bike by the head of a dead pig that was attached to the back of an on coming motor bike! We stopped at several smaller temples in between the larger ones, but none were as impressive as the one where they filmed Tomb raider, which was all crumbling away and had massive trees growing out of the walls and roots falling down to the ground through the brickwork - amazing!

We got drenched again at about lunch time when we took the opportunity to stop in a roadside cafe full of locals and I had a local dish that consisted of beef cooked in tomato and came with a lime/salt sauce thing (lohk lahk). Really nice...

That night was Helga and Barbara's last night so we went back to Angkor What? and I helped Barbara out getting a T-shirt by ordering a bucket. I had no difficulty choosing what to get in the bucket - It had to be the "Long Island iced What?" We tried to re-visit the ice-cream shop but they closed 10 mins early which I was very unhappy about! The next day Yoholi, Freddie and I had a relaxing day in Siem Reap, wandering around in the markets and Yoholi and I booked our bus tickets down to Phnom Penh for the following day. It was very tempting to stay longer in Siem Reap, but I was on a strict time limit with Cambodia!