After two full days of traveling we finally arrived in Siem Reap in Cambodia. The roads from Thailand into Cambodia are basically dirtroads full of pot holes, so it was a slow journey, though not as bad as we'd been imagining. We were informed by our busdriver that the roads will not be improved because the Thai Airlines are paying the Cambodian government NOT to fix them, so that more tourists will fly from Thailand to Cambodia, though this also makes transportation for locals very complicated.
Coming from Thailand, Cambodia was more different than we'd expected.
It reminded us of being back in South America the way we were welcomed
to new places by friendly, smiley people. Also a lot less commercial
and not as geared for backpackers as Thailand, though the level of
English was very good. Food was just as delicious, especially the
krickets we munched on on our bus journeys ;)
The first day in Siem Reap two local guys from the guesthouse took us on a tour to see the famous temples including Ankor Wat. They were absolutely amazing, though after every temple, the guys were like "waoo, so fast!", and said they'd never seen anyone go through the temples soo fast. They were stunning, all templed out we went to the lake in the afternoon together with our new friend and host 'Naked' (we later found out his real name is Veejeet), where we chilled in Hammocks eating roast chicken and drinking cold beers.
Then the two Nannies went off to see a traditional danceshow and filled their tummys with a delicious buffet. Back at the guesthouse the party was in full swing, they were downing Johnny Walker Black Label, and eating dog meat for dinner (which soon was splashed all over the ground when one of them got sick). We jumped on the back of Sighs' bike and headed off to the club, our first experience of a Cambodian nightclub. The Cambodian lovesongs were blaring and boys and girls singing along, but there wasn't much love in the air. "Stay one more day baby! Just one more day!" Naked begged, but we decided it was time to move on...
Back on the road again the following morning, we decided to skip Phnom Penh due to lack of time, so made our way up towards the border of Laos. Landed in Kratie that evening, wrecked from the travels, to be met by 6 local guys each trying to pursuade us to go to their guesthouse. We were surrounded by NON STOP YAPPING and couldn't hear ourselves think, so we both held up our hands and said "Stop it! Stop! Just stop talking." They paused for a second, laughed, and continued yapping. So we just went eenie, meenie miny mo, and followed one of them to a guesthouse. Later, relaxing with a fresh fruit shake (our new addiction) and planning a boattrip to see the dolphins the next day we got chatting to a Dutch couple. They soo kindly informed us that we would not be able the visa for Laos on the border, at all the other borders you can, just not the one we'd chosen, so we'd have no other choice but to backtrack to Phnom Phen to get our visas. So instead of Dolphin watching, we were back on the busses the following morning.
Arrived in Phnom Phen and went straight to the embassy and the visas were done in an hour. Then we went to Okay guesthouse where we met a great group of people and had a night out on the town. The next morning we were back on the bus AGAIN to return to Kratie, but this time accompanied by our new friends a Brit and a Canadian answering to the names Kate and Dan. Everyone being soo exhausted from the travels and the night before, we were all concked out snoring taking up double seats for most of the bus journey. Back in Kratie, the four of us were determined to go further to the next town, we'd been all hyped up for a pick up truck to take us there as there were no busses. But unfortunately, noone in the town were up for taking bribes, including a lovely man in a UN pick up truck. So we chilled out in the lovely town of Kratie, not another backpacker to be seen, and watched the world go by. The next day we were heading for Laos - finally. Back on the busses, oh how we love our busses. Stopped off in Stung Treng for a meal, and then the girls got all excited when they heard there was a market. Returned an hour later with new hats and sexy size 0 knickers that we were determined to squeeze into. We then hopped on the bus again and made our way to Don Det - 4000 islands in Laos.
The excitement was high over finally being in Laos, so stay tuned for the adventures of Daddy science, his ho's and lots of tubing in the rivers of Vang Vieng!
