November 1st

We caught the 8:30 bus from our hotel to Siem Reap.This was actually one of the nicer buses we had travelled on, so were able to nap a bit on the way.We arrived in Siem Reap about 3 o clock, and took a tuk tuk to our hotel.About half way there the tuk tuk driver had to stop due to the road being closed off for the water festival on the river.He gave us vague directions so we headed off into the crowds to find our hotel.With a little help from another traveler who came over to help us out, we managed to find another tuk tuk, this time from the other side of the river, to our hotel.After checking in, and meeting Buster (legend) who we arranged to meet in the hotel, we headed back down to the waterfront to see what was going on.

As in Phnom Penh, it was packed down there.We were pretty hungry as we hadn't eaten all day, so decided to try some of the street food.Some were dodgy (very weird chewy meat stuff on a stick) and some were nice (basically a toasted sandwich).We stuck around for a while watching the races, and I even won a can of beer on one of the amusements, which involved throwing a dart a balloon……smashed it!

On the way back we stopped for an ice-cream, then walked back to the hotel via the old market area and past pub street etc.

November 2nd

After a bit of a lie in, we decided to have a lazy day.After a look around the market, we went to a place called the blue pumpkin.Here we lazed around on the beds they have instead of seats.It was awesome! We had a smoothie and a milkshake and stayed in there for a good two hours planning what we were going to do for the next few days.

That evening we went for food and tried out the regional dishes.I had Chicken Amok which was awesome, and Laura tried the Khmer curry which was also very nice.After that we went to temple bar on pub street and chilled out with a few drinks playing spot the prostitute (quite a high scoring game!).

November 3rd

We were up and eating breakfast at 9 as we were due to meet Marylou and Marielle who had gone to Sihanoukville for a couple of days.The weather was absolutely crap so we ended up watching a dvd (documentary on the Tuol Seng museum, in which one of the 7 survivors from 17,000 went back to the museum to talk to a few of the people who worked as guards there…..very interesting!!) and playing pool all day.Late afternoon when the weather had cleared up a bit we headed into town for a few drinks.We stayed down there all evening and after food we went for more drinks in a bar called Angkor What? Bar (see what they've done there?! Very clever!).

November 4th

Today was temple day!Everyone was up early and we were on our bikes on the road for 8am.We quickly cycled the 6km to the ticket booth and soon enough we were in Angkor Wat.I'm not going to write too much about all the temples partly because I'm lazy and bored of typing all this up, and partly because my words cannot do it justice, the pictures (whenever we can get them online) will be much give a much better impression of what it's like.

After a while looking around Angkor Wat we headed through the South Gate of Angkor Thom to Bayon which was incredible.A map of the route we took is here: http://www.travel-budget-asia.com/images/angkor-archealogical-sites.jpg

All of it was incredible, although I think our favorite was Ta Promh, the one with the trees growing all over the temples, it was amazing!From Ta Promh we headed back to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset which was pretty cool.After the sunset we cycled back to the hotel feeling very sore, having covered about 40km!

Everybody freshened up before meeting in the reception and heading into town for food and drinks.We had food in temple bar, where they put on a free Apsara dance show.It's a local dance show, I couldn't really see a great deal from where I was, but don't think I missed out on anything!!

After that we went back to Angkor what? Bar for some drinks.It was a bit pricey in here, and as we were all up for a large one, we decided to go back to the hotel via a supermarket to carry on the drinking.We jumped in a tuk tuk to the supermarket, and after a bit of an argument with him over the arranged price, he took the one dollar and drove off leaving us at the supermarket.Still, we went and bought quite a lot of drink and sat outside the supermarket on the seats provided (like picnic tables) and carried on with the nights party.Here things start to get a bit hazy, but after a while outside the supermarket, we decide to walk back to the hotel.Between the 6 of us we manage to find our way back pretty easily and carry on drinking until the early hours.

November 5th

After getting up just in time to catch last orders for breakfast (10am) we decide to take another lazy day.Some of us were feeling worse than others…..no names…. (*cough* Laura).

Having chilled out all day we met up with the rest of the group before going into town once more.We split up for dinner, and me and Laura went for an Indian on our last night in Siem Reap.After dinner we had a fish massage.This involves you putting your feet in a blow up paddling pool filled with little fish which nibble at the dead skin.It was very ticklish but very funny.For some reason, they liked my feet a lot more than Lauras, although she did get a free massage from one of the Cambodian girls.With our feet feeling suitably soft, we went for a quick look around the night market.Not being a massive fan of markets, this one actually wasn't too bad.It looked pretty cool with a lot of different sorts of lights on sale mingled in with all the usual stuff.

After a quick tuk tuk ride back to the hotel, we said our goodbyes to the rest of the group and went to bed, ready for our early morning bus to Bangkok!