We leave Krabi and once again we have Thailand's 'Stig' driving us to the station to catch the night train to Bangkok. We arrive safely, phew, to find our train is running 2 hours late. We find a platform cafe/bar and are entertained by a little 2 year old and judging by the skidding around in his toy car he will be the next Thailand 'Stig'! We climb aboard the train and get into bed, next stop Bangkok. From here we are met at the station and once again taken 'somewhere' to get our minibus which will take us to the border of Cambodia. We would like to say 'and then we arrived', however it was during this journey that I (Sarah) vowed that I would never travel by minibus again........a horrific 4 hour white knuckle ride, in monsoon rain, passing fatality after fatality. The border itself was a strange affair, we met a young man who was going 'to get us to the other side' we 'stamped out of Thailand' and we then paid him our visa fee and gave him our passports ( the visa bureau was closed but they knew a man that could!). While we waited in 'No Mans Land' , a strip of land a 1000 metres long, full of casinos and duty free shops the visa was obtained. We were then 'passed' to another man who helped us stamp into Cambodia, who then passed us to another man, who drove us 1 mile down the road and passed us to another man!!! We climbed aboard a big bus that had seen better days, I can't really describe it, it was more like a moving house complete with curtains and sofa chairs!!! Right now it was 6pm ish, dark and there was us, another man and the driver heading towards Siem Reap. Low and behold about 30 minutes into the journey the bus breaks down......the driver continues the journey in 5th gear (only gear he had) but thankfully at 40mph all the way....a few hours later the coach /bus/ house stops in a shed in the middle of nowhere but assures us we will be picked up free of charge.... A few minutes later, like superman out of the dark, Sam The Man arrives on his remork ( not a tuk tuk but a motorbike with carriage on back attached). Sam works at the hotel we are staying at, so he gets us there... As always we check in, dump our bags and go explore.....
Right outside our hotel is a costa coffee, the Hard Rock Cafe and a Geocache, so far so good. A few hundred metres away we find the night markets and pub street, they both are exactly what is says on the tin.
The next day Sam is at our disposal, so we spend the morning exploring the immediate area some more and then we jump aboard the remork, Sam takes us out to the floating village and the town that is built on stilts....... An interesting journey, obviously the country is full of young inhabitants but passing 6 year olds driving motorbike and family's of 7 on one bike takes a bit of getting used too. Eventually we arrive at the boat house, pay our money and are pointed towards a 12 year old boy. We follow the young man to a boat and assumed that he was just showing us the way but....oh no, he was the captain'. We couldn't get our 'Nike' life jackets on quick enough ( this place is also the king of fake clobber, more so than Thailand). 10 minutes into the 1 hour river journey the engine springs a leak, we were worrying but trying not to show it as the 15 year old engineer was trying to stem the flow! 45 minutes later we make our way into the stilt town, it was remarkable (see pics) it is really amazing. We are here at high wet season and during dry season when the water level is a lot lower they appear to be skyscrapers. They have it all, a school, church, temples, and shops. We stop grab a drink and then make our way back, but will we make it? ....We do! We find Sam and then return as we have booked into the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner!!!!
The dinner was amazing and we both needed some decent western food.
The next day once again we have Sam and a day exploring the Temples of Angkor Wat ( the largest religious monument in the world) and local killing field. Angkor Wat is ' the must see place to visit' in all the travel guides and we would not disagree. We had a fantastic day walking, climbing and exploring, we also happened to go on the most important religious festival day of the year. Since we entered Cambodia the Buddhists have been enjoying the Phnom Ben festival and today was the culmination. The temples were packed but with locals near and far taking their offering of food and goods to the monks. This was just as spectacular to witness as were the temples themselves.....all this food made us hungry and as I (Sarah) had not been able to eat much outside of a western restaurant whenever I saw corn on the cob it just had to be done. However a few bites into my lunch some monkeys appeared and one started charging towards me, guessing it was the corn that he wanted, I launched it 50meters away and the monkey attack was diverted. He had a good lunch though.
On the way home we stopped at a local killing field and absorbed the information in readiness for our trip in Phnom Penh. Too sad, too unimaginable.
Upon return we showered, then hit the town for happy hour cocktails in readiness for our midnight sleeper bus to the capital Phnom Penh..zzzzzzzzzz