The route back into the old French empire of Indo-China has to be the worst border crossing we have experienced to date - by far. The bus journey to the Cambodian border town of Poipet from Bangkok, was painless enough, even though we had to make a 4.30am start. Even getting across the officialdom of the border was not too difficult. The official price for a visa is $20, but we endied up having to pay 1000 Thai baht (about $28) and the difference goes into their pocket, but then this is Asia! However, we were not prepared, despite all we had read about the Cambodian border town of Poipet. Until 1997, the town was still under mortar rocket attack from Khymer Rouge guerillas. Today, it is a haven for human and drug trafficking across into Thailand. It also has a large refugee population and has outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever. Needless to say, we wanted to reduce our time here to a minimum and the air is still filled with a sense of lawlessness. This area was a stronghold for the Khymer Rouge guerillas until as recently as 1998. We first had to deal with the aggressive nature of the taxi drivers and their "pimps". At the border there are only two real choices for onward travel. Either take a taxi or jump in the back of a pick-up truck with about twenty other people and stand all the way, most likel;y on the cargo of vegetables that is being carried in the back. We decided on a taxi!. We were followed from the Thai side of the border by the same guy, despite the 40 or so minutes it took us to get through the beauracracy, insistent that he could get us to where we wanted to go (said with handsignals and no English!). When we got to the place where all the taxi's hung out for the 3 hour ride to Siem Reap, we were descended on by a group of vultures, otherwise known as the local mafia, aiming to tell us which taxi we would take and the price. This stage of the bargaining seemed to have nothing to do with the taxi driver themselves. The local mafia are known to take a very heavy percentage of the agreed price and so are keen to do the negotiation with you so that they know how much they are getting. We decided to get aggressive back and told them which taxi we would take and we agreed with our driver how much we would pay. The vultures were not happy, one trying to get in the car with us (there are many reports of them hitching a ride and then robbing people en route) and when that failed they just attempted to stop the taxi from leaving the stand. Thankfully our driver was persistent and after a good deal of shouting by all parties, we eventually broke through. The roads in Cambodia seem to be pretty much like those in Laos i.e. non-existent for most of the way! So we literally shaked, rattled and rolled our way through to Siem Reap, though not before we had a minor breakdown along the way (clearly we are jinxed with transport). As the semblance of tarmac gave way to just a red dust road, you could have been forgiven for thinking you were in Africa as the landscape became very barren and dusty and resembled the African savannah. Siem Reap means 'Siam (Thailand) defeated' alluding to the Cambodian victory over Thailand in the 16th centrury. The town is one of the bigger towns in Cambodia, though offers nothing more for visitors than the nearby ancient city of Angkor, one of the wonders of the ancient world. After such third world conditions between the border and Siem Reap, we were amazed to find that this town was served by a huge number of five star hotels. Clearly afer many years of being isolated from the rest of the world, tourism is being to arrive here. Everything here is priced in dollars as the local currency, the riel is worthless outside Cambodia. Angkor is a huge temple complex surrounded by jungle, spread over 160 square kilometres and was the ancient capital of the powerful Khmer Empire in the 900's AD. The Khmer held sway over much of SE Asia for some 5 centuries and it is one of the archealogical treasures of Asia and the spiritual and cultural heart of Cambodia. The Khymer built the huge complex during this time and it must have been an unbelievable site at it's peak. After the collapse of the Khymer empire in the 14th century, Angkor was left to the mercies of the jungle that surrounded it for more than three centuries and the site was not discovered until the 1860's by the French explorer and naturalist Henri Mouhot. The jungle was cut back to reveal the 'Lost City'. Sadly over the many years since the temples were re-discovered much of the stonework and many of the art pieces have been plundered from the site, either for private buyers or national enrichment (as the French liked to call it). The Khymer Rouge also ransacked it and behedded many of the statues. Now a Unesco world heritage site there has been a great deal of restoration work, sadly not all of it has been sympathetic and there is evidence of additional concrete and new stonework in place to "restore" the buildings to what they would have looked like in their original form. That said the temples are trully amazing. To think that these enormous temples, some towering 55m above the ground, were built more than a thousand years ago. Each peice of the stonework has also been intricatley carved with ornate images of Buddha, Vishnu, Siva and Brahma as the main gods of the religions represented by these temples. We spent the whole day trekking between the temples, halls and fountains, which in 40+ degrees of heat is not an easy task. Many of the walls have intricate bas releifs and carvings depicting stories of old. The temple also contains huge swimming pools. Much is still in reasonable condition especially Angkor Wat which is the main temple. Here, the Wat (temple) is surrounded by a moat-like river with a long bridge leading to the entrance. Inside the main centre piece is a five turreted temple. We climbed to the top on the very step steps and were rewarded with a great view of the surrounding jungle. The whole place is very much like the set of the movie Tomb Raider. We kept looking for secret buttons leading to unknown passages but with no luck. Chris was also disappointed not to find Angelina Jolie in her Lara Croft outfit roaming around! On one of our many breaks for a cold drink we were met by a group of children keen to sell us their handicrafts. They tried a new technique of "I guess the capital city and you buy my bracelet". Amazingly they knew most of the capitals of Europe, but we eventually stumped them with the capital of Ecuador (answer is at the bottom!). Clearly Ecuadorians don't get this far on their vacations! The evidence of previous wars is very evident here, with lots of beggers sporting only one leg. Landmines are still fairly prevalent so we have been careful to stick to well worn paths. We have enjoyed it here in Siem Reap, even though the main town has little to offer than the nearby Angkor. We travel south to the capital Phnom Penh, tomorrow, where we hope to learn more about the Khymer Rouge and the atrocities of 25 years ago. ANSWER (Quito)