I landed in Bangkok very late and got in a taxi after reading up on how to avoid being scammed. I was heading to stay with my friend Matt who I've known forever, and his girlfriend Kate who live in Bangkok. The journey would have been a bit easier had I written their address down correctly, so after well over an hour in the taxi I finally got to their apartment building. Matt came and met me and his face was painted, I had completely forgotten it was Halloween! We dropped my things and headed to the bar him and Kate were drinking in and got the beers in. We had a good catch up and carried on the drinking back at theirs and stayed up beyond the small hours.

We all surfaced the next afternoon and headed outside to go and find some food. We went to a little street stall and got a big plate of food for about 40p. Always a winner. Then we went back to their apartment and made use of the pool in their block which was pretty awesome before deciding a massage was in order. Obviously. We went to their 'local' and Kate and I had an hour long foot massage followed by an hour full body. You'll be pleased to hear it wasn't quite as 'full' as the Balinese one I had. We then had some food and went home for a quiet night after the previous one.

I decided to spend one more day in Bangkok to get everything sorted whilst Matt and Kate went to work. This included changing some money, which to be frank I've done A Level exams that were easier and less stressful! We went out for some more Thai food in the evening and Kate and I stayed out a bit later before returning to the apartment and saying farewell as I was leaving super early the next morning.

The whole next day was nothing short of epic. I woke at 5am after a few hours' sleep and got a bus from the apartment to the train station. Then I got a train to the furthest stop north, where I got out and got in a taxi which I luckily shared with two other backpackers. We went to the bus station and got tickets for a bus to take us to Poi pet, the town at the border. So we boarded a very old rickety bus which should have taken 4 hours but actually took nearly 6. When the bus dropped us off we then had to walk up to the border through what can only be described as a far from desirable area. Once there I queued for an hour or so to be stamped out of Thailand and then you were really in no man's land, there were no official signs or directions, beggars everywhere and everyone wearing official uniforms telling you where to go for a Cambodian visa, some of them real, some fake. It's safe to say it was all a testing experience! I found the proper visa office and got that sorted before again being spat out into god knows where with no idea where to go. I eventually found another queue, which was to enter Cambodia. In the queue I met two girls, Skye and Rochelle, who were having an equally trying time at the border. Another hour or so we were finally through, only to have to wait for a bus to take us to the bus stop, where we decided along with a lone Japanese man we found, to just split a taxi to Siem Reap between the 4 of us.

The taxi journey itself was an experience, especially when we stopped for petrol at a shack at the side of the road and he pumped it in through a hose and a hole in the boot whilst the engine was left running. We also saw galloping cows in a field which again, was a new experience. When we arrived in Siem Reap, the taxi driver just dropped us off at a tuk tuk, where the three of us and all our bags were crammed into one and he took us to our hostel. The owner amusingly was called Mr WhyNot, but he was very helpful and sorted us out with a triple room. After leaving Matt and Kate's before 6am, I arrived in Siem Reap after 7pm. Was a long day! The girls and I went for a wonder and got some food, and purchased some elephant pants in order to cover our knees at the temples the following day. We were all shattered and called it a night quite early which was understandable after our day.

We got up and sorted a tuk tuk for the day to take us to Angkor Wat and off we went. The temples were all beautiful, and a style of architecture you've never seen anywhere else. Unfortunately I managed to fall over and twist my ankle quite badly at the start of the day, and in the process also ripped my newly acquired elephant pants. So I spent the rest of the day hobbling around with my underwear showing which wasn't ideal, but there wasn't much I could do!

We opted for just one day at Angkor Wat so we fitted in many temples, including the one where tomb raider was filmed where the trees have grown around the building which is pretty spectacular. Unfortunately the whole site was full of beggars and very small children trying to sell you everything, which got pretty grating after a while. One little girl burst into tears on us when we didn't want to buy a bracelet, I had to convince Skye not to feel bad and that she would be pulling the same stunt on another bunch of tourists straight after us. Still it is hard seeing such young kids doing this.

Back in Siem Reap we went out for some local food and then hit Angkor What? Bar, where we ended up for the rest of the night drinking the infamous buckets and having a dance, which was all good until we had to get up and get a bus to Phnom Penh the next morning…

We got on to our bus, which was well past it's sell by date and had no toilet but luckily I managed to sleep for most of the journey. The bus was meant to be for 6 hours but ended up being 8. We were soon learning to add a few hours on to everything here. We arrived in Phnom Penh and once again loaded ourselves into a tuk tuk and went to our hostel. We dumped our stuff and went to go explore, all be it we walked in the wrong direction so explored a bit more then we were intending too. We found somewhere to have dinner, although we were slightly disturbed by a woman who kept using her two babies to beg for money and at one point even just left her baby lying on its own in the road.

The following day we bargained another tuk tuk for the day and went to the killing fields which were about 7km outside of PP. This was something I'm really glad we did, I learnt a lot about Cambodian history and it was hard to believe it was so recent. They had a shrine to the dead which had skulls piled as far as you could see of the victims that were murdered there. There were many mass graves and even a tree that they used to pick up babies by their legs and hit them into the tree until they died. It was all very harrowing. From there we went to the Tuol Sleng museum, which was a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison. Here you could see the rooms prisoners were kept in and the torture rooms that they were subjected to all kinds of horrific abuse. There were thousands of photos of victims that never returned from there and again it really hit home at the atrocity that happened only 30 years ago. What was worse is the people responsible are still to face trial, even though they admit to being responsible for thousands of deaths personally.

After this we headed back to the river and went for a walk looking at some of the buildings and having some food before going back to the hostel to recuperate after an emotionally and physically draining day.

The next morning was another early start as we were getting the bus to Vietnam. This bus was better than the last (it had a toilet at least!) and our passports were all collected at the start in preparation for the border crossing. The 2 hour journey was of course, 4 hours, but the border was so organised and fast compared to the circus of the Thailand/Cambodia one and before you knew it we were out of Cambodia and on our way to Ho Chi Minh City for our next adventure….