Time to head back to Phnom Penh! It's been a nice few days at the coast and one of the highlights was when I peeked outside behind the curtains at about 5:30am today and saw the most amazing sunrise. I tried to go back to sleep but in the end got the camera and took some photos from the balcony - stunning! (See photo for this entry)

Our but to Phnom Penh was at 8am and was full of mainly locals. We got seats together though and I tried to drown out the Cambodian karaoke DVD that was playing by listening to my iPod! The journey was nice and simple and we arrived back at the capital at midday. Feeling much more confident with the tuk-tuk drivers now that we've already visited Phnom Penh, we haggled with a couple of them and negotiated a good price back to the guesthouse we stayed at last time. The family who run the guesthouse had been away for Khmer New Year and had closed it for 3 days so we knew we'd be able to get a room. As we were getting out of the tuk-tuk, one of the managers came to greet us saying 'Welcome back!'. It's nice to have such a warm welcome from friendly staff - it makes all the difference to weary travellers like us!

We checked into the same room as last time, cooled down in the air con, then went to find some food. We went to a cafe nearby and then walked to Phnom Penh's only shopping centre for a look around and to buy some lovely ice cream - I chose 'After Ate' flavour! We went bs back to the travel agent hoping to pick up our passports but they were still at the Chinese embassy because of the New Year break. They're going to post them to their other office in Siem Reap when they get them back so we can pick them up there.

That night we went to a Mexican restaurant that proclaimed itself the 'best Mexican restaurant in Asia'...we're not so sure! First, they forgot our order and only remembered when we asked where our food was as a big table that arrived after us was getting theirs. Then they brought Dave the wrong order and we had to wait even longer for them to bring the right food. Think we'll stick to Asian food from now on...

Afterwards we stopped for some cocktails at a bar we went to last time (again, the waiter recognised us!). As we were sat drinking our cocktails, I spotted a familiar face across the room - Arianne who we met 2 months ago in Melaka, Malaysia! We caught up with her and found out she's also heading to Siem Reap ina few days so we might meet up with her there. It's a small world when you're travelling!

Back at the hotel we enjoyed a little treat that we'd bought earlier at the shopping centre - a snickers each! The chocolate in Asia is nowhere near the same as at home so we don't have it much, but this tasted good!