A 6 hour bus journey from saigon to phnom penh was not the ideal way that I would have chosen to spend my birthday but needs must. What was not entertaining in the least was arriving at our hotel after said journey and them having no room despite our reservation. Not impressed. Nor were we impressed by the receptionists attitude at having to return our deposit and lack of apology. So off we go on a tuc tuc trying to find decent accommodation that doesn't belong to the tuc tuc drivers uncle, friend or dad! Eventually found somewhere fab by the river and settled in. We made the mistake of discussing our plans for the next day with the driver and sure as hell there he was waiting for us outside the hotel in the morning waiting to take us on our tour! Bless him, he was decent enough and off we went.

First stop was the S21 prison which was basically a school converted into holding and torture cells by the kymer rouge regime in the 70's under the leadership of the infamous Pol Pot. Harrowing to put it mildly. All was left were instruments of torture, pictures of the many who lost their lives and a sense of extreme sadness that something like this could have happened not so long go to so many innocent people. After that is the obligatory trip to the killing fields just outside of phnom penh, named to capture the 17,000 approximate Cambodians  that were massacred there, including women and babies, during the same regime. I think the horror of it all was more apparent when seeing the 100's of skulls that had been uncovered here and were being displayed in stark contrast to what looked like a beautiful sunny meadow. Definitely not a visit for the faint hearted.

We walked along the riverside (for some reason we can't say that now without adding an "mf" on the end!) in the eve after dinner and saw several groups of what looked like flash mobs going on. On closer inspection we saw that basically young kids with boom boxes had set up what looked like impromptu dance aerobics classes along the riverside, the aim of the class being to follow the instructors dance moves. Well if you can't beat them.......we joined them! Muchos fun was had.

Next day was a another bus trip to sihanoukville, pretty much a beach resort in the south. We managed to meet up with many of our friends we had met in Laos and Vietnam and it was time to party. Its the only place I can say I have come across so many 24 hour bars. Mike and the gang were staying at Utopia which was one such place. JJ's by the beach is where the whole town seems to end up on a night out and is basically a beach shack that you need to wade through the water to get through and clamber over rocks. Gotta love the lack of health and safety in Asia! Luckily we had no mishaps but others weren't so lucky. So in I clambered with shubs who had by this stage acquired a Biro tattoo on her arm from Oliver and was still soaked with the beer that someone had literally thrown all over her earlier when they missed their aim for someone else. 

The next day was pretty much hanging out on the beach with Mike and the gang, soaking up the sun and heading out for more of the same that night. Except this time Shubs felt the need to jump fully clothed in the swimming pool at Utopia after the night out and managed to entice us all in. Felt great until we had to head back to the hotel on a motorbike with sopping wet clothes. We bid farewell to all our friends who we were sad to leave as we were heading to our final destination in Cambodia the following morning. 

Siem Reap is the base to visit the mind blowing temples of Angkor, the main one of course being Angkor Wat. We spent the whole day in the heat clambering up these temples which show the influences of hinduism on Cambodian culture and religion before Buddhism.  The design and architecture are simply amazing to this day and there were some magnificent sights.   We visited the temple where tomb raider was filmed and did the obligatory Jolie poses as best we could. :)  sunset entails a clamber up to the tops of one of the temples to watch it, gorgeous. It was chinese new year and we headed out that night to "Angkor What?" pub ( do you see what they did there?) and made friends with some local girls (one who was actually called Darlin) celebrating new year and partying the night away. She for some reason made it her single mission to shout "Shabs" whenever she could and maul and drag shubs and I around  the dance floor at any given opportunity, bless her. 

We paid for it the next day however when a so called 6 hour bus journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok turned into a 4 hour border crossing in the midday sun with no bus waiting on the other side! We literally had hours on a pavement with luggage until eventually we were packed like sardines into minibuses with non existent a/c all the way to Bangkok. It was horrid, although I did have to chuckle when a police man took a look inside at a checkpoint with his gun as we did look like refugees! Eventually we arrived in Bangkok battered, bruised and in need of some serious sleep to prepare for the flight to Sydney the next day. We were finally off to see the wonderful wizard of oz. Excited and yet sad to be leaving Asia after having had such an amazing experience and meeting so many wonderful peops. Onwards........