We set off from the beach on Don Det at 8am on Monday morning and crossed the border, making it to Siem Reap in Cambodia at 11.30pm Monday night via a combination of boat, tuk tuk, two VIP aircon buses and a local shack of a bus. The first bus was a tad worrying as it didn't have enough seats for everyone and so people were crammed onto laps and sitting/standing in the aisle. We had no idea whether this was to be the conditions of our 14 hour journey or not, but luckily that leg was only around 20 minutes long.

Six of us had booked into a great hostel, called The Siem Reap Hostel (original), complete with indoor pool. Slightly out of budget but worth it, and we had our own six bed dorm which escalated our friendship to room mates status.

Our first day was spent flashpacking in The Reap, indulging in the novelty of being back in a tourist town after the remoteness of Laos - the first stop being the ATM as Don Det had no access to ATMs at all. The morning kicked off wonderfully with one of the best breakfasts I've ever had in my life, let alone whilst I've been away. This description is mainly for Alli's benefit but perhaps others will appreciate it too - homemade granola with yoghurt, honey and pear and raisin compote. Mmmm. Conveniently spotted that Le Grand Cafe, the location of the delicious breakfasts, sold real wine (not wine that tastes like pineapple juice or similar) - and therefore the flashpacking continued throughout the next few days.

After lazing around for the majority of the day (and of course after finding time for us girls to buy ourselves some new dresses at the market), everyone was in such a good mood that the day began to be likened to one of the universally acknowledged best days of the year - Christmas Eve. And subsequently Tuesday 22nd February became our fake Christmas Eve in Cambodia, complete with a Christmas song sing along whilst we got dressed up in our best outfits for our first big night out in Cambodia. Jamie even managed to get Temple bar to play The Pogues 'Fairytale of New York' because "we're British Orthodox Christians and we celebrate Christmas later than most people". A great night out, as Christmas Eve always is.

The main attraction of the surrounding area of Siem Reap is of course Angkor Wat and the dozens of other temples in the Angkor area. Which meant that one day we set our alarms for 4am in order to get a tuk tuk to Angkor Wat for sunrise, eased by coffee and pain au chocolats from the amazing local bakery, The Blue Pumpkin. Sadly the sky was pretty overcast and so the sunrise wasn't the amazing array of colours I so wanted to see (as some of you will have seen from my photos on facebook).

We still managed to spend the majority of the morning engaging in some organised fun around the ruins of Angkor, which unsurprisingly provided ample photo opportunities. The ruins were brilliant and I definitely want to visit them again (and get my sunrise and sunset shots!) It takes days to visit all of the ruins so it's the perfect excuse to find myself back in Siem Reap one day. The town itself is conveniently my favourite place so far on my trip too. I did have a slight accident in the temple known as the Tomb Raider temple, because, well, Tomb Raider was filmed there (no prizes for guessing that). I managed to fall over whilst trying to take a photo and twist my ankle, complete with loud yelping as I went down. Not very Lara Croft. None of the group were with me so I had all of these German tourists crowding around me trying to find out if I was ok, which was very kind but very embarassing. The others eventually helped me up, but not without taking a few moments to capture the moment on their cameras. I had to literally LEARN how to limp as I was limping on the wrong foot for ages. How hard can it be? Sometimes I honestly don't know how I've gotten through life so far. Highlight of the afternoon was an elderly gentlemen (who looked like he'd fought in several wars) overtaking me by a good 30ft on the way out of the temple toward the awaiting tuk tuk.

The following day we took a couple of tuk-tuks to the Landmine Museum on the outskirts of Siem Reap, which was easily one of the highlights of my trip so far. Despite the fact that the whole thing was pretty heartbreaking, I'm so glad I got the opportunity to learn about the struggles Cambodia still faces on a daily basis. When you're in a country with such happy, friendly people you sometimes forget how poor most of them are and how recently so many of their lives were ripped apart by the rule of the Khmer Rouge.

The man who set up the museum, Akira, was kidnapped and forced to be a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge, killing many people during the war and laying down thousands of mines across Cambodia. I wasn't aware of this but mines are not designed to kill at all, but to maim and blind. After a colourful past including leaving the Khmer Rouge to join the Japanese army, Akira set up the Landmine Museum to increase awareness of his plight to clear Cambodia of all remaining landmines that continue to maim thousands of Cambodians (especially children) every year. The museum also takes in orphans maimed or affected by landmines, educating and providing for them until they are ready to leave as an adult - although they don't ever have to leave if they do not want to. Akira was named as one of CNN's top ten heroes in 2010, so hopefully this accolade will help to increase awareness of the problem of landmines in Cambodia.

We were lucky enough to get to talk to an American guy called Bill who has moved out to Cambodia to work for Akira's charity and were able to ask him lots of questions about the charity and how they clear the landmines. They have a team of around 30 landmine clearers, who are expertly trained over the course of six weeks to detect landmines and clear them safely. These workers are local Cambodians who are currently paid around $220 a month for their trouble. Although the charity would love to be able to pay them more, they are on an extremely good wage in comparison to the majority of Cambodians - $150 dollars is considered a very good wage in Cambodia per month, and many people will never earn this much.

The team targets villages that are suspected to have a high level of landmines in the surrounding area and they deal with one village at a time. There is no time limit on how long they work in each place - their work is done when there are no landmines left. The next village on the list is one in which they have been waiting to put a playground next to the local school for a decade but haven't been able to due to potential unexploded ordnance.

Bill also told us some stories that really put our lives and worries into perspective. He told us that Akira's wife had died two years previously due to the medical care in Cambodia. They don't give anaesthetic to women when they've experienced a miscarriage and need to be cleaned, so when Akira's wife sadly had a miscarriage she was psychologically scarred from the pain of the clean up procedure. Tragically she later had another miscarriage and instead of going through the process again, opted against it and subsequently died from the complications of not being cleaned post miscarriage. It's unbelievable that women are dying from such a simple thing so often out here. She was 28.

He later told us of one of the elder ophans who had lost her parents, worked from a young age to support her younger siblings whilst also going to school to earn her high school diploma. At the time of studying she could not afford much so lived off of one boiled egg a day for four years. Whilst studying she worked in one of the bars we frequented in Siem Reap during our trip there, where all the food they were ever given were scraps from people's leftovers. She later joined the orphanage and got sponsored to complete a degree in accountancy at university, which she achieved and now wants to take her studies further and become Cambodia's first female governor, all whilst still providing for her younger siblings. She's 23. And I worry about missing Grey's Anatomy. Sometimes you really do forget how lucky you are.

After the sobering but incredibly interesting and worthwhile experience of the landmine museum, we bought a few books and bracelets to support the charity and made our way to the local butterfly farm. Bit random, I'm aware. However not only was it fun to see all these beautiful butterflies flying around you, but it was again really interesting to learn about some of the projects that are going on to support the local communities in Cambodia. The project hires locals (usually women as they can work whilst looking after the children at home) to farm different types of butterflies, which they are then paid for according to the rareity of the species. The project has already secured contracts for exporting butterflies (which is timed perfectly so the butterflies are still pupa and don't hatch during transit) around the world for private and public exhibitions. The butterfly pupa are literally sent via DHL which I found quite amusing. The contracts will enable the project to hire more people in remote communities in Cambodia and encourage increased income for these families.

On Saturday morning, Joe, the first member of the original group of six of us who had been travelling for near on a month together decided he'd had enough of us and sodded off to the Thai islands. Though it may have been the Siem Reap massage experience that scared him off:

"Charlie, did she errm...massage your arse?" No, Joe. You got felt up.

Though secretly pleased to see the back of him, it's extremely weird to say goodbye to people who you become so close with and essentially live with for weeks on end. Luckily Lauren, Vicky, Lily and I had a date with the local orphanage to cheer us up.

As soon as I got off the tuk tuk one little girl grabbed my hand and dragged me into the orphanage, sat me down and then sat on my lap, whilst another started combing and plaiting my hair. The children were so incredibly smiley and smart; their English was brilliant and we were able to have detailed conversations with them about their likes and dislikes, their education and most importantly, their love of Justin Beiber. These kids had never heard of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin but knew all the words to 'Baby' by the Beib. Mental, and actually incredibly unnerving that Justin Beiber Fever has reach countries such as Cambodia. He's taking over!

Gutted to leave Siem Reap but that's the nature of backpacking. We couldn't decide whether to head to Battambang in the countryside or head straight to Phnom Penh after a bad review of the former, so we flipped a coin. Heads it was...heading to Phnom Penh. x