Hi Everyone,

I hope you're all enjoying the blog, we thought it's time to tell you about our adventures in Cambodia. In our last entry we left you getting off the fast boat from Vietnam to Phnom Penh in Cambodia…

We stepped off the boat into absolute madness, the government elections were a few days away and we ended up being caught in a parade. There were hundreds of people on motorbikes, cars and vans all holding up four fingers (we later learnt that this stood for party number four, who are currently in power at the moment), on the tuk tuk journey to the hotel we noticed that other passer-by's would hold up seven fingers to them (which we later learnt was the main opposing party - number 7). After a hectic few days on the Mekong Delta we decided to chill out, so spent the next couple of days doing nothing - which may sound boring but it was AMAZING!

However, when we did finally try to do something the elections scuppered our plans. We tried to go for a night out on the night before the elections but the government had banned the bars playing their music loud (to ensure everyone got up to vote the next day). So we ended up in a roof top bar of a hostel, which played very quiet music - some people tried turning the volume up but the bar men quickly ran over and turned it back down. So it ended up a rather civilised night out! The following day (the day of the election) we tried to go to the Russian Market but it was also closed because of the elections. So we ended up with more days doing nothing than we had originally planned!

- Now we're not going to pretend to be experts on Cambodian politics but for anyone who is interested, we worked out that the gist of it is… the prime minister (of party number 4) has been in power for 28 years - their main stance is to continue the economic growth of the country. The main opposing party (number 7) concentrated on anti-corruption in the country which a lot of the younger voters support. Number 4 ended up winning the election and supporters of party number 7 said that this was because the government was corrupt and fixed the election. Anyway, you can make your own minds up on that one…

On our final day in Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields we visited was just one of the sites throughout the country where thousands of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 70's, for reasons such as being associated with the previous government. Millions of people were killed in really gruesome ways as they didn't want to waste their money on ammunition. We were given an audio guide, which led us around the fields telling us about the horrific things that occurred there. There were mass graves everywhere - some of which had been excavated and their skulls moved to a memorial stupa on the grounds. It was really upsetting, particularly a tree which they beat children and babies to death against and then threw them into a mass grave next to it. Around the mass graves and on the tree, people had left their bracelets in tribute to those who died there. In contrast to what happened there just over thirty years ago it is actually very peaceful there now - so there is some solace in that.

To make the most of our last day we also visited a temple, library and the central market in the afternoon before getting a bus to Sihanoukville on the south coast the following day.

We decided to stay at Otres beach as it was the main backpacker area and not as touristy and seedy as some parts of Sihanoukville town. Otres beach is what the beaches of Thailand used to be like 30 years ago, there is just a dirt road leading to a load of bamboo bungalows lining a long deserted strip of beach- beautiful. During the first night we were awoken by some rustling in the room, when we turned the light on to investigate we saw that the pack of Oreo's we had left by the bed had been nibbled on by something other than us. We put the Oreo's in the bin outside and got ready to go back to sleep. As we were saying night to each other, a rat ran across the head of the bed and scurried through the side of the hut. We spent the rest of the night sleeping on the beach surrounded by dogs. The next night, we were determined to keep any rats out, so we left the light on and Josh left his iPhone playing music quietly on the bed. This seemed to be successful in keeping vermin out, but it didn't stop someone from sneaking there hand through the bungalow wall and taking Josh's phone as we were sleeping! As you can imagine, Josh was annoyed so we left to go to a better hotel in the main town.

The following day we made our way to the island of Koh Rong - we had to walk across a plank of wood to get on to this decrepit boat, while it was moving up and down because the sea was so choppy. After just about managing to board the boat we began the very choppy three hour journey. The sea was so rough that we had to sit on the floor in the middle of the boat as we feared that if we sat on the side we would fall in! By the time we arrived we were drenched. The part of the island we stayed on was nothing more than a strip of beach, some palm trees and a few bungalows. On Christina's birthday we decided to walk to the other side of the island where there was another beach. On the way we were greeted by three children who were shouting hello to us, we stopped to speak to them but left when we realised that the youngest was more concerned about getting into our bag - as we walked off he ran after us and smacked Christina's bum! We followed the bar man's map and after climbing over rocks for what seemed like an eternity we realised we had gone the wrong way. Eventually we found the correct path through the jungle where we also spotted a snake, which chased Christina through a puddle. After walking for a good few hours we arrived at the other side - only to find a storm heading our way - so we made a quick retreat but still got wet!

When we got back to Sihanoukville, Josh booked a one day motorbike tour through the Cambodian countryside. He thought it was going to be a bit soft and aimed at lazy tourist who couldn't ride bikes, so was surprised when the lead rider said 'try and keep up with me' and proceeded to ride full throttle down old disused tracks, through rivers and swamps and over basically any obstacles in the way. After 3 flat tires, 4 river crossings and plenty of speeding hi-fives to the local kids he eventually made it back to Sihanoukville town. Before returning to meet Christina, who had spent the day in a spa, Josh and the other rider went for a few beers in the bars where the expats drink. They were all disgusting seedy old men so Josh made a quick getaway back to the hotel.

We left Sihanoukville and went to Kampot which our travel book described as "charming" - we later realised that this meant run down and dead! We spent one night there and left the next morning - nothing else interesting to say! We then got the most luxurious coach we have ever been on to Siem Reap - it even had wifi. After a day chilling in Siem Reap we got up at 4.30am to visit the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples. We had planned to watch sunrise, which Josh did successfully but Christina did not as she got lost down an elephant track! It was cloudy anyway so sunrise was not as spectacular as we had thought. We spent the day looking around the largest ancient temple complex on earth (It doesn't receive as much attention as it should). One of the most incredible temples, Ta Pronm, which has become intertwined with giant trees and roots, was featured in the Tomb Raider film a few years ago. After a long day looking around the temples, the following day we got a coach to Bangkok which took 12 hours (including waiting around for 4 hours in the blistering heat at the border).

We are now back in Bangkok where our adventure began, and still only half way through our time in South East Asia.

Thanks for reading - you've been great.

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