Hello! Oh wow... what a journey! Well, we are finally in Cambodia after what we must call another epic journey. It was long, it was complicated - but we did it!

So, our journey started yesterday (was it really yesterday, it feels about a week ago!) when we left Koh Tao island at 2.30pm. It poured with rain on the island and there was a huge tropical storm so we were quite happy to go. At one point we weren't even sure if we'd be able to leave as the weather was so bad, but the boats were running fine and we managed to leave for mainland Thailand. Our brains have been so foggy since we got to Koh Tao (as in - we got very lazy!) that it was quite an effort to actually pack our bags, get on the boat and start thinking about the next leg of our journey.

We got to mainland Thailand at about 6pm and were then told that the nightbus to Bangkok left at 9pm and not 8pm which we had originally been quoted. We have discovered it's a bit hiss and miss here - sometimes public transport goes bang on time and everyone is very efficient and other times it's incredibly vague and just sort of leaves when the driver feels like it! We hung around Chumpon (the port that we arrived at), had some dinner and managed to board the bus and bag seats together before the rest of the passengers bundled on. The bus then left at 8.30pm (told you it was vague!) bound for Bangkok.

This bus was particularly uncomfortable and I think we mentioned before that Matt finds the buses particularly uncomfortable as he's so tall and there's just no space for his long legs (he tries putting them in the aisle but it's still uncomfy for him). The driver, as with all bus journeys, stopped at about 11 at a random food place where everyone leaves the bus and eats overpriced Thai food, even though they have already had dinner. We think that they do it because they are a. bored and b. greedy. We just stayed on the bus and laughed at them. The rest of the journey up to Bangkok was pretty horrid as the two guys behind us were talking loudly the entire ride and getting up and down out of their seats. We have just decided that overnight buses, although cheap, mean absolutely no sleep whatsoever! We are lucky if we get an hour or so, but it seems to be that every time you drift off you reach at your destination about half an hour later and you get woken up and feel worse for it. When we arrived at our destination in Bangkok (the awful Koh San road which is the backpackers mecca in Bangkok and somewhere we would never want to stay) at 4.00am we were swarmed by taxi and tuk tuk drivers who wanted to take us to our destination but refused to put us on the meter (we've experienced this before) and were trying to charge crazy prices to take us to the bus station. We finally managed to flag down a taxi with a meter (good old Matt just stormed in to the middle of the road and stuck his arm out!).

Our next destination was unfortunately not bed which was all we could think about at this point, but another bus station where we planned to get ourselves on to the first bus that left for the Thai/Cambodian boarder. We couldn't face another day in Bangkok as we have been there so many times during our travels that we just though't we'd try and do an all nighter and power on through. We were lucky enough to get a bus that left at 5am for about 4 pounds each so jumped on it as quick as we could in the hope of getting some more sleep! We met a lovely British couple on the bus who were also heading in the same direction and agreed to travel over the boarder towards Siem Reap together (safety in numbers).

When we got to the boarder, it was pouring down with rain which made the entire experience just so much more beautiful! The whole boarder crossing experience is very strange and the place that they take you to is like no mans land. It's full of people begging (mainly small children) and official looking people who don't seem to actually know what's going on. We were hustled in to a queue for 'foreigners' (it's so racist here!) ánd managed to get a stamp out of Thailand. Then we really were in no man's land! It was still pouring down with rain and just made the entire experience so much more horrible! We had to go to the awful Cambodia visa office which is notorious for ripping foreigners off. The ófficials' are all men sitting in suits with badges and apparently run the country but are so corrupt it's disgusting. Even though there was a sign above their office saying 'Tourist Visa, $20' they tried to charge us $30 saying that the $20 was Bangkok prices as well as 100 Thailand baht (2 pounds) for himself! What the...?! We stood our ground (you would have been proud) and refused to pay anything other than $20 - in the end after a lot of eye rolling and talking to each other, they agreed and we got the visa for $20!!! Yey! Then another scam started when a really nice guy came from nowhere and said that he could provide a free shuttle bus to get a taxi (which we had read about online and knew was the truth although we are very suspicious about anything 'free' anywhere because it just doesn't exist). He then hung around with us trying to barter different prices for a taxi to take us to Siem Reap and his friend to meet us there to find us a hotel. At this point, we knew he was scamming us and we were so annoyed because we had done so well to miss out on all the scams and then we allowed ourselves to get involved with this guy! We couldn't get rid of him! We finally negotiated a price for the taxi between the four of us which was quite reasonable, and then a dogey taxi with blacked out windows pulled up! Before we could refuse it, an official looking guy came up on a moped (random?!) and told him off and the dogey taxi was quickly replaced with a more official looking taxi which took us to Siem Reap for the same price. We weren't sure if this was another scam but were so tired at this point that we just got in and enjoyed the air conditioning!

We arrived in Siem Reap after about 2 and a half hours in the taxi. The roads here have recently been tarmaced and it was quite a nice journey through the country. It's very flat in Cambodia and we got to see so much on the road in to Siem Reap including a man transporting live chickens upside down on a cart, a cart full of dead pigs (nice) and kids on motorbikes waving in to our car and smiling. It's still such a developing country here that they are still working on the roads and buildings but it's nice to see after Thailand which is pretty much all built up and ready for the tourists. We got to Siem Reap and had a drive around to find a cheap (ish) hotel which is nice and clean and they have hot water. We are now just about to go out to dinner and have arranged to go to Vietnam after Cambodia (in light of my conversation with my Mum last night, Mum you inspired me so thank you!) so are getting our visas organised. We have booked a very cheap flight from Vietnam to Bangkok on the 24th which will give us a few days to do the islands in the south (we have heard they are incredibly expensive so don't want too many days there spending money!) and then on to Oz on the 1st May6.

We have booked a tuk tuk to take us to Angkor Wat temples tomorrow morning at 8 so will write tomorrow with our news and no doubt some pretty amazing photos to share with you all! Lots of love and missing you - from the crazy country of Cambodia! XXXXXX