Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat, which must be the single greatest concentration of temples and ruins on the planet. Because of this Siem Reap is a busy touristy place. In general most people I met tended to like either Siem Reap or Phnom Penh and generally disliked the other greatly. Within 5 minutes of arriving I decided I must be a Phnom Penh person because Siem Reap was horrible. I got off my bus to be greeted by a swarm of touts. Then I had a lengthy argument with my tuktuk driver about; the existence of my chosen destination, It's location, the location and existance of "Pub Street", the distance to the town centre, and obviously the cost of the tuktuk. Eventually I made it to Pub Street, it was baking hot and I just decided to have a beer and use wifi and allow myself a minute or two to breathe.

After I got settled into my hostel I went for a little wander and then just chilled for the rest of the evening. I had the pleasure of the company of probably the most annoying person I've met on the Asian leg of my trip. That's how life on the road goes, you stay in hostels etc so you can meet people and that's what makes the trip but occasionally you meet an A-hole!

The following day was my first visit to Angkor Wat - I decided to visit some of the further away temples and take a tuktuk. It was simply stunning and I didn't visit any of the big hitters. Obviously I'm not going to describe all of the temples - eventually I will get around to uploading some photos but just believe me they are stunning! So after a busy morning/afternoon of temple fun I spent the afternoon relaxing and then spent the evening with Christina and Lauren who I had met in Laos (much more pleasant company than the previous evening). The next day I was back to Angkor Wat but this time I was on my bike. I headed out very early (4.30am) to get there for sunrise. Unfortunately, while the sun did rise it didn't provide the red sky that sunrises at Angkor Wat are famous for. It is still a masterpiece of temple building to behold. I then decided to do the traditional loop of temples in reverse order - hoping to miss some of the crowds. Again I won't describe the temples but they were stunning. One of my favourites was Ta Prohm, where Tomb Raider was filmed and many of the buildings are being attacked by trees. As the day wore on, and got incredibly hot I became tired and found the incessant sales pitches more and more annoying. Luckily, the temples were so breath-taking that every time I thought I'd possibly had enough I saw something that blew my mind and made me want to carry on. The last 2 temples I visited were Baphoun and Bayon, these are traditionally visited immediately after Angkor Wat but I was really glad I visited them last because I left on a high, I think Bayon was probably my favourite temple.

That night I had dinner with Christina and Lauren again and got an early night because I'd been up very early and the next day I was off to Borneo to catch up with my fantastic friends from Manchester!!