Well, we really fell on our feet with this hotel. The staff were absolutely charming, all smiley, happy and wanting you to have the best time. The rooftop swimming pool was almost always empty, so we would sit, swim and drink cocktails with no-one else to bother us. In fact we got annoyed one day when another couple were sitting in 'our' seats!! And the pool seemed to be a perfect wineglass shape, when viewed through Bob's wide angle lens, and, yes, that's me swimming, lol!

Having recovered from the bus trip we were taken to Tonle Sap lake to see a floating village. Well, we were expecting a few houseboats moored at the side but this was something else - a whole village, out in the middle of a huge lake. Each family had its own 'house' and they were even arranged in a sort of street formation. There was a floating school, church and various shops. We stopped off at one, obviously for tourists, a crocodile farm. However, there was a rather large 'snack' in a wooden crate, a python I was told. Bob dutifully steered me away from it, but I couldn't get off the floating barge quick enough! Several of the houses owned dogs - we wondered how they took them for a walk??

Then the best discovery ever - we found a restaurant that not only had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, but put it in an ice bucket too - Siem Reap was delivering!! Apart from the frenetic "Pub Street", aptly named and noisy at night, Siem Reap was calm. There was no tooting of horns, fewer bikes, roads were easier to cross but more importantly, the people were charming - very different to the Vietnamese, who were polite enough, but the Cambodians do everything with a huge smile on their face!

And then to the highlight - Angkor Wat (as in the title of this blog)! We were up at 4:30am so that we could witness the sun rising over the famous temple and it was quite an impressive sight. We ate our packed breakfasts inside the temple walls, marvelling at the carvings and details on the walls. The site is huge and you have to drive, or be driven, from one area to the next. Our guide took us to the 3 biggest and most important temples - Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm. They were all stunning and Claire, you described the site perfectly - My Son (the temples we had already visited in Da Nang) on steroids! For me, the most amazing one was Ta Prohm, which had huge trees growing over the temple ruins. This was made famous in the film Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie. We got some amazing pictures so I won't bore you with descriptions, but we were truly awestruck!

It was already very hot and humid - I cannot remember ever dripping so much. At 6am the temp was already 28 degrees and rising quickly. My new $2 shorts, from the market, were sticking to my legs - so much so that when I stepped up over a high doorway I heard a nice ripping sound underneath. After hastily checking with Bob that my dignity was still intact, I manoeuvred gingerly for the rest of the tour. We had a fair amount of walking to do too, so our guide decided to move us along and get finished before the heat really kicked in. We were finished by 10am, all dripping and exhausted! This was the last day of the guided tour so we had a lovely evening with 4 other members of our group who we had got on really well with. Harvey, Rita, Ian and Sheila, thank you SO much for being such good company and we hope to catch up with you in your respective countries (Oz and Scotland) at some point very soon!

So Bob and I then had the luxury of 2 free days to ourselves. What did we do? Fish pedicure, whole body massage (the highlight being a foot in the groin!), shop for new shorts, swim, eat, drink, swim, eat, drink and tuk-tuk ride around the countryside!

We thoroughly enjoyed Siem Reap and wished that we had done what Harvey and Rita did, and go to visit other places in Cambodia before leaving. Siem Reap was a lovely place, the hotel staff were exceptionally friendly and we just loved it!