The first daily flight of two from Pakse runway was our next destination of Siem Reap in Cambodia. We boarded a very new and respectable Lao Airlines 36-seater, with a scummy Lao meal included on the 1hr30 flight! What was even more impressive was Siem Reap airport. An oriental external pitched roofed look and very modern luxurious black and white marble interior with exposed timber roof structure above. There was sculptures, artifacts and water features scattered all over.

At the airport we bumped into our previously mentioned friend Ross. We decided to find this Green Fields guest house together, so we shared a minibus with …yes… more Irish people! Greenfields was amazing! Really cheap comfortable rooms with private bathrooms and a rooftop bar with free tv, pool/snooker, internet and a great view of the sunset! Our Californian room-mate Ross Thomas turns out to be a Hollywood movie actor, starring in American Pie: the naked mile - as lead role and some teen beach series in Hawaii called Beyond the Break. Later on in our travels, we met two Californians in Vietnam who thought in was unreal and really cool that we met him!

Of course, the one and only reason to stay in Siem Reap really is because the town is located only 6k from the Angkor Wat temples. Angkor Wat temple is actually only 1 of many, the remaining temples are situated on about 20k of road scattered all over the place.

We gave ourselves 3 days to explore, the first day we only had the afternoon remaining because we discovered our bar was selling 25p draught Angkor beer and it had been a long morning! After lunch we ventured out on a tuk tuk to Ta Prohm. We arrived and were hassled by literally hundreds of children trying to sell you water and crafts, pulling at you from every angle – it was horrible! After finally escaping the pesky sellers we approached the temple, you often see this one in photographs of the tree entangled and entwined with this particular temple, it was quite exciting to finally see! Ta Prohm proved to be bigger than first thought and required a few hours to explore.

The following morning the 3 of us rented some super cheap bicycles with charming baskets on the front to head out to Angkor Wat itself 6km away, we were drowned in sweat on arrival as we left at midday where the heat was so intense. We locked up our bikes and spent the entire afternoon there. I was amazed by how few people were there, if you look at my photos many are absent of white sock and brown sandaled tourists. I am thinking this may be because everybody heads out to see the sunrise and spends the rest of the morning to explore. The temple was quite special, it was made up of long corridors, small intimate rooms and larger open-air enclosures. I was happy. When we returned to our bikes Andrew and Ross’s bikes were locked together and the key would not work, we were tired and wanted to go back! Andy hopped on the back of a motorbike taxi to go get help from the company we rented from. In the meantime, Ross and I chattered to a young Cambodian lad for over an hour while we waited, he was so knowledgeable about almost everything and had good ambitions for his future, he was quite refreshing. We were also joined by a wild monkey that swung down from a tree. Finally Andy returned with a guy from the shop who used a hammer to free the locks! Ha

The third day Ross and I woke at 5am, hopped on a motorbike together to use the full potential of our SLR cameras with catching the stunning sunrise at Angkor Wat. We returned to town, had some breakfast, then the 3 of us rented a tuk tuk for the afternoon to see the remaining temples. The highlight for me was the Bayon temple at the epicentre of Angkor Thom city, it was a proper crumbly mass of stone. There was not a sole present and could explore up and down stairs and corridors linking the temples rooms. At one point we lost each other and I walked around the outside to the back where a monk was perched on a window sill drawing on paper with a biro, I walked over and we had a lengthly chat about drawing and the life of a monk. I bought a drawing from him so he could purchase some better drawing tools.

The pair of us realised we had only 14days or so to reach Hong Kong, through the entirety of the 3000k coastline of Vietnam, so we only stopped in Cambodia's capital Prohm Penh for 1 hour on a connection to Ho Chi Minh City.