To get from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap, you have to travel through Phnom Penh. Our bus arrived in the capital at around mid morning on Friday 10 August. We were dropped outside the bus company offices (common practise - they don't often take you to the bus station) where we were in time to get a connecting ticket to Siem Reap leaving in 10 minutes. We grabbed a few snacks and got settled for the 6 hour trip northwards. We arrived just as it was getting dark and, after eventually finding our pickup driver, got to our guesthouse where we checked in and had a really nice dinner, before heading up to bed.

Saturday we just took it easy - wandered around exploring the town and checking out the markets. We managed to sort out a trip to the ruins for the next day. Siem Reap is the nicest city that we saw in Cambodia - things just seem to be a little bit cleaner and more modern than other cities we visited, and there seemed to be more parks and green spaces too. That night we had dinner at this cool place by the river and treated ourselves to ice-creams for the walk back to the guesthouse, where we headed straight to bed as we needed to be up crazy early the next day.

Sunday we were up at 04:15 so that we could be at the Angkor complex for the sunrise. Angkor is actually a collection of many temples spread out over a huge area. You pretty much have to drive between them and, even then, you couldn't hope to see them all in a day. Our tuk-tuk driver took us around to see the main ones, which seems to be what most people do. He would drop us off, unroll his hamock in the back and wait for us to return.

The ruins are simply amazing. Some were built more than 1000 years ago and are still (more or less) standing. So many of the walls and columns are covered in these incredibly detailed carvings. Some of the walls and buildings have partially collapsed, and the restoration and preservation work is ongoing. Those Angkorians really loved their towers, and we climbed sooooo many steps that day :-/ The mid 30's temperatures didn't make it any less exhausting, and even though we had brought more than 3 litres of water, we soon ran out. We were completely finished by the time we headed back to our guesthouse in the mid afternoon, where we had some drinks, a shower and then collapsed into bed. That evening we just took a nice chilled walk along the river. Having now been to both Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat, I would say that Angor Wat is way cooler and more impressive.

Monday we slept in a bit and then, very boringly, spent most of the day in the lobby area waiting on a call from our bank back home - more admin stuff that needed to get sorted :-/ Monique took a walk around town and managed to get bus tickets to our next stop and some snacks to get us there. We had dinner at the guesthouse and then headed into town for a drink at the infamous "Pub Street." Afterwards we took a nice leasurly stroll back to our room where we packed for the next day.

Tuesday we were up early, packed the rest of our things and headed downstairs for a quick bite to eat. Our pickup arrived halfway through, so we had to finish our breakfast in the minibus. The bus company office was pretty close and soon we boarded our bus for the short trip West to Battambang.