On the 8th July it was time to head back to Bangkok in order to start my tour to Cambodia. I met my 14 fellow travellers and tour guide over a traditional Thai dinner. The following morning we set off early at 7.30am to Poipet which is the border crossing between Thailand and Cambodia. The border formalities and queues were quite tedious but we all made it safely into Cambodia. The landscape was immediately very striking: extremely flat green paddy fields stretched out on both sides of the road into the horizon. Hills are very rare in this country! We made it to Siem Reap at 5 o'clock so it was a very long bus journey! We had a dinner planned at a local Cambodian's house. They lived in a little farming neighbourhood and cooked us an amazing dinner. There was a coconut vegetable curry, noodles with pork, ginger chicken, a clear soup with bamboo, vegetables such as carrots, cauliflower and green beans and lots of rice. I was happy to discover that none of it was very spicy! They were a very warm and welcoming family and the children were very enthusiastic to practice their English.

The next morning we had an extremely early start. At 4.30am we left our hotel in order to see the sunrise over the temple, Angkor Wat. This is the world's largest religious building and was built in the 12th century. We arrived in the dark and found our way with tourches down to the lake which lies in front of the huge temple. As the sun rises up behind Angkor Wat the temple's reflection can be seen in the lake. It's a very impressive sight to see and hopefully I will get round to uploading my photos onto here. We then returned to the hotel for breakfast and set off at 8.30 to see the other temples in the area. These included Angkor Thom, Elephant Terrace and Jungle Temple. Parts of the film Tomb Raider were shot here. Extremely tall trees had spread their thick long roots around the abandoned stones of the temple. Lastly we returned back to Angkor Wat to explore inside the temple in daylight. The trees in Jungle Terrace had provided lots of shade but Angkor Wat was so hot as the sun reflected off all the stone. We climbed a lot of steps and made it to the highest point of the temple which is also the most sacred. I was struggling in the heat and from lack of sleep but would thoroughly reccommend a visit here!