So after the bus journey from hell, and I think probably THE worst one to date, we arrived in Siem Reap - having endured a protest, a ferry ride, some of the most atrocious roads I've ever seen, and 17 hours of numb bum instead of what was supposed to be just 12!

We got up early on NYE to go explore, as we'd heard that there were gonna be some pretty special celebrations going on later that night, and we certainly didn't want to miss out! The infamous 'pub street' was definitely just that, with restaurants, bars, and pubs galore.. and already done up to see the year out in style. We were very excited. We grabbed a tuk tuk back to our hostel to chill before all the craziness began..it was actually nice to see these quirky little contraptions again as there hadn't been any since we left Thailand, and this place was definitely not in short supply of them!!

Making our way into the town later that night it was clear we weren't getting anywhere fast, as I think every family in Siem Reap had the same thing in mind haha. We ended up getting out of our tuk tuk a little walk away from pub street as the roads were at a stand still, and turning the corner we were amazed to see the whole street was shoulder to shoulder with locals and tourists all happy and dancing to music being played out by some of the biggest speakers I've ever seen.. it was incredible. Almost every 10 seconds a Cambodian was wishing us a happy new year, clinking their bottles with ours, and it was so lovely to see everybody forgetting about their worries for just one night, being happy and enjoying themselves. Luckily most of the restaurants along that street have second & third floors with balconies, and we wanted to see the atmosphere from higher up.

There were SO many people in that one street that the locals had actually formed a conga on either side of the street which worked amazingly and was so funny to watch - maybe us Brits should try it as our queuing system!? While up there the cutest little Cambodian girl took a shine to us and we must have danced for about an hour with her and her mum! It was so lush to see her smile with no cares in the world.. and believe it or not she wanted to go down to party with everyone else, even though she was only 6 years old haha. It was pretty surreal when we went into a tiny little newsagents and low and behold there were some strawberry ciders produced in Bristol!!!! Considering the rest of Asia was beer obsessed, and we are avid cider drinkers, it was a lovely home comfort & we had a wicked rest of our night seeing in the new year the Cambodian way.

The next afternoon we'd organized with our lovely tuk tuk man to go to the temples of Angkor. We were very excited as it was something we'd been looking forward to for months and months, and as it is renowned as the '8th wonder of the world' we knew it was gonna be brilliant. To see the temples at Angkor, you must either be issued a 1 day, 3 day or 7 day ticket according to your interests and how long you have to explore... we decided to go for the 3 day one, and headed to the biggest first, Angkor Wat. It was INCREDIBLE! This place didn't seem to end; every corner you turned there was more and more of this beautiful architecture, and it was pretty mind blowing that it was built thousands and thousands of years ago.

What we'd heard from other travellers was confirmed though, as there was hundreds of tourists, meaning you couldn't get a picture like you see in the brochures! After this we headed to the Bayon and Angkor Thom (all within the Angkor Wat perimeter) which were again amazing, and we ended up having some Lara Croft style fun until I pretty much ran into a monk who did not look impressed!! Ha. After a tiring but awesome day we grabbed some food in an Irish bar on pub street (fancy being able to get jacket potato, cheese & beans in CAMBODIA of all places.. yes we did have this guys!) and got an early night before our very early alarm to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. This was even better the second time round, and even though there were triple the amount of people, and it wasn't a clear day, it was one of those moments where I just needed to sit and take a few minutes to soak it all up..

We had a change of scenery that afternoon and went to visit Tonle Sap Lake, as quite a few of my friends had recommended it. This was actually about an hour's tuk tuk ride away from our place, but still in the province.. and it seemed that it was my day for admirers! We'd only made it round the corner and were stuck behind a school minibus - they must have been about 10 years old & kept staring at us. I didn't think anything of it, until they'd written 'your girlfriend is cute' on a piece of paper and placed it on the back window for Billy to read! Haha. No sooner had we arrived we then hopped onto a longtail boat & had our very own tour guide as there were no other tourists to be seen. Being only 18, he took a shine to me and kept telling Billy how beautiful I was throughout our whole boat ride. I think this day was a sign!

Tonle Sap Lake is beyond massive. The majority of it consists of a floating village, which houses 650 families. There was a police station, a temple, restaurants, locals floating around fishing, and the water is only there half of the year before it disappears and everybody walks around for the other half! Words cannot express how humbling and inspiring this place was. They have the simplest of things, yet they make them the best they can and nothing else matters. I am so in awe of that, coming from somewhere like England... where it's all about materialistic things. We took the cutest little boat ride through their mango forest too, which was so tranquil I could have stayed there for days. When we'd thought we'd seen it all, our guide took us out into the main part of the lake.... which literally looked like the ocean as it was enormous and we couldn't even see the other side!! To top off such a perfect day we watched the sun set over the lake, and went back to our hostel feeling really humbled and privileged to have been able to share such an incredible experience.

Our final night in this beautiful place was one of the best as I was finally reunited with one of my oldest and bestest friends. Emily left the UK back in November 2012 to start her own adventure in Oz, so after a year of only chatting via whatsapp I was so excited to see her again. Em being Em told us directions that didn't make sense (haha) and I almost thought we weren't going to get to see her but luckily it worked out, and we went for one of the yummiest meals I've had in Asia! We got to meet one of her travelling companions Dan too who was lovely, and she finally got to meet Billy. We went and had a couple of drinks after in a bar that had a skate park on the roof (crazy) then it was time to say goodbye again.. LUSH evening.

The next day we packed up our things bright & early, travelled a couple of hours to the border then endured another 2 hours in the scorching heat with our bags on our backs waiting to get through immigration. Finally we were back in Thailand, and back to where it all started.. Bangkok. Time for the islands!!