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After sharing the room with a small family of cockroaches last night, again we didn't get much sleep. Up at 6.30 so we could have breakfast before getting the boat across to the mainland at 8.00am. As we wouldn't be returning to Laos we spent our remaining 100,000 Kip on a good breakfast and bought some food and water for the 12 hour journey south.

Once on the mainland we would get a minibus to the border, cross over the border (visa etc), then get a coach to Phnom Penh (hopefully arriving at around 8.00pm). As we have now learned no journey you take in Asia is as easy as it sounds!

The trip to the mainland and border was easy enough and only took about 30 minutes. We all then had to start the lengthy and overpriced visa process. The first part involved handing over $2 (USD) each for our Laos departure card, we then climbed under a barrier to the Cambodian side of the border where we paid out a further $1 for our "health check". The health check involved one guy sticking the same thermometer he had used for the previous 20 people in our ears, only in Asia! After that we then filled in our visa application forms and paid $20 dollars and an extra $3 for "admin charges", still not finished we then filled in an arrival card and finally handed over another $1 before we were allowed to cross the border into Cambodia!

The only official charge out of all of that was the $20 for the visa, the rest ($7) was just a nice little earner for the miserable b*****s working on the border.

We then all had to sit around in the sun for a further 45 minutes before we were allowed to board the bus. Apparently the Cambodian company whose bus we were getting had not been paid by the Laos company who supplied the tickets. Eventually it all got sorted out and we set of at 12.00pm, thinking we would be lucky if we arrived before 10.00pm that evening.

A couple of hours in there was an almighty screech and the driver broke suddenly, we had a popped tyre! There were about six Cambodian guys, including the driver who had come along for the ride, so they all jumped off, seems this happens often, a new tyre was put on in no time. Off we went again.

A while later we stopped for lunch in a small town, with one overpriced restaurant that we were encouraged to eat at. Obviously we didn't join the rest of the coach in eating here and set off in search of some street food. We found a guy with a side car/kitchen attached to his motor bike and bought some noodles from him. We then sat on the pavement outside the restaurant eating out dinner!

Once back on the coach and with the guys who owned the company assuring us we would still be arriving around 8.00pm we sceptically settled into the journey along the bumpy roads taking in the scenery.

At about 6.00pm it got dark and clearly trying to make up for lost time, the driving became more and more erratic. We were over taking trucks on blind corners, swerving round cows at 60 mph and breaking at the last minute wherever possible. At 8.30pm and all still in one piece we arrived in Phnom Penh. Amy had been to Cambodia before and recommended a good guesthouse house, so tired and hungry we all jumped in a tuk-tuk (something we never usually do when arriving in a new city).

The guesthouse was nice with a big communal area in the restaurant downstairs. After a quick shower and a bite to eat we headed into the city for a few drinks. We went to a seedy little bar, with the usual young attractive Cambodian girls hanging on the arms of fat, old westerners and Rachael lost a game of connect 4 to one of the "barmaids". Feeling quite tired after the long journey, we headed back at about 1.00am, ready for a day of sight seeing tomorrow.