After party week in Bangkok we left for some cultural encounters in Cambodia. After an epic 17 hour bus journey from Bangkok, crossing the border at Aranya Prathet we eventually arrived in Siem Reap. The whole thing was a bit of a scam - we more or less got bullied into buying overpriced visas before we crossed as the bus would have gone without us if we didnt after putting up a fight we eventually broke and gave in to the infamous "Bangkok - Siem Reap bus scam"! They also tried to force us to stay at an expensive hotel when we arrived very late and very tired in Siem Reap but we persevered and found our own place called the Popular guest house.

The first day we recovered from our bus journey and wandered around the town then headed to the Temples of Angkor for sunset - disappointing sunset but still nice to see the view of Angkor Wat from a distance. Next day we got up at 4.30am to see Angkor Wat at sunrise, it was amazing and definetly worth the effort - even if we were grumpy b*****s for the first few hours!! Angkor Wat was really impressive, so old and the carvings still intact - looked like something out of Indiana Jones. The area of Angkor has 300+ temples and as we do have a life we didnt see them all!! We did however see the Temples of Bayon, Ta Prohm (where they filmed Tomb Raider) and a few others we cant remember!

That night we headed to the legendary Angkor What? bar where we drank too many pitchers and drunkenly agreed to work for free the next night, needless to say the next was spent in hiding nursing hangovers!! Word of advice drunken pool leads to unwanted attention and ridicule - we have since then been brushing up on our pool skills!

Monday morning we caught the bus to Phnom Penh - no scams this time so all in all a good journey! In Phnom Penh all the backpackers stay in Boeng Yak near the lake so we headed here and found ourselves an en-suite room for 75p each per night called No Problem Guest House!! All the guest house have balconies over the lake with hammocks, pool tables and bars so we chilled here and watched the sunset. We had 3 nights here during which we visited Choeung Ek Genocidal centre (The Killing Fields) and the S-21 security prison. The Killing Fields are just outside Phnom Penh and pretty depressing; its not very big but you can see the remains of the mass graves some with clothes and bones still visible and 8000 skulls of victims in a glass tower as a tribute to the dead. S-21 was originally a school but was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and turned into a prison and torture house. It was a pretty harrowing experience as there were loads of photos of those killed and pictures of them being tortured. It was really unbelievable to think this happened only 30 years ago and no one seemed to do anything about it for so long!

After our depressing day we cheered ourselves up with a few drinks and a visit to the Heart of Darkness (the place to be seen in Phnom Penh!!). Randomly met some friends from Bangkok so had a very cool evening. We rolled in at 4.55am and then got our bus to Ratankiri 5.45am !Hard core!

After our 12 hour bus journey (two spent sitting beside a broken bus!) we arrived in the dust bucket of Ban Lung, Ratanakiri in the far north east of Cambodia near the Laos border. We came here to see the water falls and volcanic crater lake; this was fab - the lake was really beautiful and pefrect for swimming! To see this and the waterfalls we hired two guys and their motorbikes as its all a bit off the beaten track. The waterfalls were really nice and we got to swim in 2 of them. We also had our first encounter with a snake!! It was a bright green snake which is quite poisonous - rather than distract it so we could pass the motorbike guy decided to beat it to death!! We have a picture! Really glad we made the effort to come up here as we got to see a bit of real Cambodia (minus the tourists) including a local market with pigs heads for sale!!

After a couple of days here we headed back to Phnom Penh to meet up with some friends we met in Siem Reap. We had another 3 nights here (including another night at the Heart of Darkness!). We just chilled, organised buses and had a trip to the Russian Market where you can buy anything under the sun.

We had a really cool time in Cambodia; its so cheap here (double vodka redbull 35p!) and the people are really lovely despite their history - wish we could have had more time here but Vietnam's calling!!

Hope everyone's well - wishing you were here!

lots of love Becky and Charlotte xxx