We spent a day in Vientiane in Laos, which was a bit of a non event really. We arrived by bus which was an 8 hour journey which should've only been 6 but we ended up dropping someone off at the border which took a while. We also had to wait 2 hours for the bus and when it did show up there wasn't room for everyone, so we had to wait another half an hour for a mini bus! I think that's just the way they work there though! I had some delicious Mekong river fish on our first night there and then explored the city the next day. There wasn't too much to do there. We visited a fountain and a temple. We met the other 4 girls later in the evening and had dinner with them. They arrived after us and are going onto Vietnam next. We're hoping to meet up with them in Vietnam somewhere, or if we miss them there then hopefully in the Thai islands.
We caught an early morning flight (we were up at 3.30 to catch it! which turned out to be too early cos the airport wasn't open when we arrived!!! Super efficient!) from Vientiane to Siem Reap in Cambodia. We flew Lao airlines which we'd heard had a bad reputatuon but I couldn't fault them! They gave us food so that's a good start! We actually had to take 2 hour long flights. The first to Savannahkhet and the next to Siem Reap.
Beth and I went out for lunch and then Beth went off to Angkor Wat for the afternoon. I didn't fancy going on the first day so I stayed in the town. I chatted to some lads staying in our hostel and they's spend 3 and a half weeks tubing in Vang Vieng!!! I don't know how they managed that long!
The following day I joined Beth in going to see Angkor Wat. We got up at 4.30 so that we could get there for sunrise. It turned out that there was no sun during sunrise though and they'd also put scaffolding up on the front of the temple so that was a little disappointing. It was good fun sat in the dark with a load of strangers waiting for this temple to appear though! We spent around 5 hours in the temple. I didn't know much of the background behind the meaning of Angkor Wat but it was great walking round looking at all the old artwork. All of the Buddah's are headless which I don't think is accidental. We looked around 2 other temples which had great character and the place was sooooo hot and humid it was hard to do much walking around. My favourite temple was Angkor Thom, which is in ruins and has been overtaken by trees!!
We managed to lose our tuktuk driver so we found a much better one who took us round! It's hard to find the right one when you leave them in the dark and they go and park in a massive car park just full of tuktuks!! The children around the place also get slightly annoying! They come up to you wanting you to buy postcards or scarves or food or just about anything really! It was quite cute that some of them were impressing us with that geographical knowledge, but not cute enough for me to buy anything!!
Beth did a third day at the temples and I decided to be cultured and take a trip to the national museum. I thought it was going to tell me the story behind Angkor Wat but it just explained what some of the artwork meant which I found a bit boring to be honest so I didn't stay long! I decided to go and spend the sunset on a quad bike! It was so much fun! A guy came and picked me up on the back of his moto which was not fun and was quite scary but the quad biking was brilliant! It was just me and a guide who was ona moto and who I followed. He took me round the paddy fields and some of the villages of Siem Reap which I wouldn't have got to see otherwise. The children in the villages ran out just to come and wave as we went past! It was so sweet! I was a little concerned when I got the quad bike out though as he said "you know how in England you drive on the left, and in France they drive on the right, well we drive in the middle"!!! He said he'd asked the police the correct side to drive and they said there wasn't one!! The cars and mopeds literally drive all over the road! And just avoid each other by beeping their horn - a lot!! Luckily I wasn't on the main roads but the back ones instead. Sunset over the paddy fields, with water buffalo in the background was brilliant!