We arrived in Siem Reap during the early evening after a 6 hour coach journey from Phnom Penh. The bus station is outside of the town centre and is populated by lots of very pushy tuk tuk drivers, possibly the most persistent and annoying we've encountered. We had pre-arranged to look at a hostel with one of them, but he was so pushy we blew him out! We then went to plan B and just got transport (with a different driver) into town and then thought we'd find a hostel recommended by of our Rough Guide. We were wrong, for some reason all of the 6 hostels we visited were full. The tuk tuk driver followed us around for fully thirty minutes as looked for a place to stay, trying to get us to one of his "preferred" hotels. Eventually we found somewhere reasonable to stay but it was more like a family home than a hostel. We were the only guests and had to ring a doorbell to get in!

Siem Reap itself is a small, attractive town, used as a base for backpackers and high-end tourists alike (and everyone in between) as a base for exploring the famous ruins of Angkor Wat. At night the lively Pub Street is an easy place to find somewhere to while away an evening supping 50c beer and buy one get one free cocktails. We spent all our evenings here availing ourselves of such fantastic offers! As Siem Reap is geared up for tourism we were able to sort out a 2 month Thailand visa with a friendly tour operator. This was a relief as we hadn't been able to get this in London and were travelling overland to Thailand from Cambodia which would have meant receiving a 15 day visa on arrival. Apparently the Thais and the Khmers don't get along terribly well.

Finally managed to get our notepad fixed with the help of a new hard drive.

We were in Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat which is not just one ruined temple; it is in fact over 100 monuments spread over 3,000 square kilometres. Our eagerness to see as many monuments as possible, coupled with the warm weather in this part of the world convinced us to hire bicycles for our first day of exploring (despite a bicycle incident in China that has thus far gone unreported). It's best to see Angkor Wat first thing in the morning so we were on our bikes at 6am, however we were soon regretting our decision as first the Heavens opened with rain and then Gemma had to take a short break to vomit, this time the cause was attributed to the malaria tablets.

Gemma soon picked up and we completed the 4 kilometre cycle to Angkor Wat surprisingly quickly, the road was not very busy and the terrain is flat which is very conducive to cycling. Whilst walking over the moat to the temple we were brimming with excitement, but as we entered through the western gate we were dismayed to see that the picture perfect postcard view of the temple was spoiled because of scaffolding and ongoing maintenance work.In truth it took us a while to get over that disappointment, but as we explored the temple and saw more and more incredibly detailed architecture, carvings and statues we became more and more awestruck. We discovered that Angkor Wat isn't just one building to admire but a whole collection of temples, rooms and carvings to marvel at. The highlights were the Gallery of Bas Reliefs depicting the battle scenes and epic Hindu stories, the Gallery of 1000 Buddhas and the central chamber.

We spent around 3 hours walking and climbing around Angkor Wat before moving on to the site of the next temple. This is where the Temples of Angkor really do fall into a league of their own. With a lot of places we've been to, you visit, read some history, take the essential photos and then move on, but with Angkor there are a huge number of different temples and ruined cities to visit, many of which have their own individual characteristics and charm. We had set aside two days (one on the bike the other on the back of a tuk tuk) exclusively for the purpose of visiting ruins during which time we visited around 10 very different sites and left with the feeling of only having scratched the surface.

Hopefully our photos will give an idea of the beauty of the Temples of Angkor Wat, the highlights for us were the causeways depicting the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (the Hindu myth of creation), the large face carvings at Bayon, the Terrace of Elephants at Angkor Thom, the ruins at Ta Phrom where the jungle (and giant trees) overgrows the ruins and the tiny red sandstone temple of Banteay Srei.