Cambodia
Our first impressions of cambodia were good, it reminded us of thailand with all the temples. When we got dropped of in Pnomphen we all started the search for a place to stay, we got a tuk tuk to the river front but everywhere was quite expensive. In the end we found a place that we read about in our book called indochine 2, it was very nice. We all met to go out for dinner but when we sat down I had to leave, so grant walked me back to the hotel and went back by himself. Later when he got back he informed me not only had he had a meal with k and k but went to another restaurantand had a burger and a beer.

The following morning we had booked a taxi that would take us to the s-21 museum, the killing fields and the russian market all was very interesting. We learnt about the khmer rouge that was started by a man called pol pot. Later on that afternoon me grant and kylie took a tuk tuk tour of the city(kyle was sleeping)the first stop we made was out of this world, there was a temple at the top of a hill with I giant clock at the front and a park around it all. People with just sat around chilling, the best thing about this place was there were monkeys everywhere you looked. It was nice to see the monkeys in a much more relaxed environment just sat around looking for things to eat and playing with eachother. We wantedd to stay longer to feed them but our tuk tuk was waiting. Hanging out the side of the tuk tuk to get photos we went around the city and saw a load of temples. Went we got back we all fancied pizza so we hunted for one where we came across a load of “happy pizza places”. K and k were up for trying a happy pizza but me and grant didn’t click on to what it was untill they said about it. Just stuck with the usual peperonni, it was our last meal together as a group – so said our goodbyes and gaves each other hugs, also exchanged coins (we had their new zealand coins and they had our british coins).

The next morning we woke up ready for our trip to Siem Reap. Our bus journey was a nightmare – the driver kept stopping letting locals to get on even though the bus was full. The extra people sat down in the aisle on plastic chairs, so everytime someone wanted to get off they all had to move. When the bus trip was over, we were met by a very nice tuktuk driver who spoke very good english. He took us to a hotel and told us the tuktuk would be free if we stayed there. We decided to stay then arranged for Yantha (the driver) to take us on a tour of all the temples the following morning, for the entire day. We checked in then headed out to find an indian restaurant. But the one we chose to eat at ended up being very expensive aqnd utterly horrific. It was salty and greasy and the rice was crap, also the popadoms were burnt! It ruined our evening and the long wait for a nice indian that we had been lusting after for ages. We wandered through the night markets which to our shock were very clean and tidy.

4.30am – woke up to our alarm. 4.50am got up in a rush to get ready for our tour of the temples of ankor. We met vantha downstairs then set off in his tuktuk. Even though it was so early there were a lot of other people doing exactly the same as us, trying to beat the crowds. We pulled up to the ticket office where we had to purchase a day pass to enter each temple. I was still sleeping when the woman said to look up and pointed at the camera to take a photo for my pass. I had to show this to everyone when entering the temples, it was embarrasing. We got to the 1st temple – ankor wat. Our 1st glimps put us right off – there were tourists everywhere! We didn’t know why we had bothered going to the trouble of waking so early. Walked on faster than everyone else who were trying to get photos of the sunrise and got a quiet half an hour to ourselves around the temple. It was mindblowing, and enormous. We got around it quite fast and still had time to catch the sunrise for photos, it was picture perfect. We got through all the temples just about – as it was so hot. Saw many engravements on the walls of the temples and doorways, they were increadable. Had a little information given to us at the beginning of each temple from vatha. It was exhausting, everytime we arrived at a temple or left a group of kids would come and surround us trying to sell us their junk. We would just walk past ignoring them ecspecially toward the end of the day when we were more cranky and restless. Once we finished we got back to our hotel and booked a bus out of cambodia the next morning.

When we got into our room it was roasting, the air con had been turned on. It was going to be turned off untill 2pm so we went out for an hour, when we got back it still hadnt been turned on. They said sorry – another 30 minutes…we had a nap thinking it was going to be turned on, but when we woke – we were drenched in sweat. So we immideatly packed and checked out. We werent having the best of times, we just couldn’t wait to leave the country!