Up early and ready for the bus. Actually it took us 12 minutes to pack up and clear out our room - only to go downstairs to reception and find out there is a one hour time difference to Brunei and we were 58 minutes early. I wondered why our wake up phone call hadn't come yet!! We had been in Phenom Penh since Sunday so just shows you how cruisy life is when you don't really notice there is an hour missing.

Had a quick breakfast and then a 5 hour mini-van ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. 4 of us sat across the backseat lol. So bumpy from roads plus driving is crazy. Anything goes. At least we survived. The landscape was stunning. Farmers raking out their rice to dry it, beautiful white and brown buffalo, paddy fields. etc etc. Still there is a huge amount of smog around and the houses are beyond falling down. The main road is being widened and the dust and dirt and water just sits or swirls around, right next to all the people sitting eating, cooking, selling their goods by the side of the road and at the small markets.

The 4th passenger squashed in the middle of Cheyenne and I was a young Cambodian man whose parents left in 1975 at the beginning of the war. Half a million Cambodians were taken in by France and he was born there along with his brother and sister. Both of his parents died at 50 years old. He has come back to spend a year doing volunteer work teaching French, plus spend time learning Khmer language and getting to know his family. He said the older generation all spoke French and this was a language taught at schools. Now they learn English, Khmer, Chinese. I'm not sure what the French connection is to Cambodia. I will have to do some reading. Just at the hotel. Time for a swim.