Live from Cambodia

Since we last wrote we haven't been up to that much really...

Spent our last day in Siem Reap visiting yet more ancient temples and palace ruins after changing guest house as our room had been double booked - we suspect someone was willing to pay more! However, all ok as we got a nicer room elsewhere for less money!

Went to Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world and very spectacular - it's spread over three tiers the highest of which is reached by climbing 80 degree steps (which obviously we regretted the minute we had to climb down again!).

We then got our driver(!) to take us to Bantaey Srei, another ancient temple around 26km away from Angkor and highlight of the trip was stopping for petrol - picture a couple of water coolers filled with petrol along the roadside and you have a Cambodian petrol station!!!

Day 7 and on to Phnom Penh. We caught the bus which was surprisingly on time and quite comfy - discovered the Mekong Express which is a tad more expensive but has air con, snacks, toilets and karaoke/cambodian hit parade videos most of which had a crazy frog theme (we now believe crazy frog was a clever Apple invention to boost sales of the iPod!).

So...Phnom Penh...after about an hour we decided to head out to Sihanouk Ville (where we are now) the following morning! Once we'd booked our onward bus tickets we began to relax a little and took a river boat cruise to see the grand palace and floating village - both of which were memorable for very different reasons!

The locals recommended a trip to S-21 (Toul Sleng Genocide Museum) but we decided against spending the afternoon looking at thousands of human skulls encased in glass towers! We also refused the taxi driver's offer to take us to the killing fields and have a go on theAK47 assualt rifle range - something specifically for the tourists!

After ruling out the major Phnom Penh 'tourist attractions' we decided to regroup in a busy riverside hostelry to plan our evening, where Steve was mightily surprised to catch a glimpse of a passing elephant on the other side of the road! We obviously had picked a good spot as we later saw a family of monkeys crossing the street via telegraph wires - and we were still only on the first drink!!!

The next morning we checked out of Room 101 (no joke!) at the Last Hope (Home) Guest House and got a tuk tuk to the bus station after our taxi failed to materialise. The guest house owner assured us it would come and the bus would wait but we really didn't want to risk spending another day in Phnom Penh! Arrived in Sihanouk Ville, Cambodia's premier beach resort, safe, sound and on time! Our home until the 20th is a really nice GuestHouse by the beach with it's own pool - not bad for $5 each per night!

Sihanouk Ville is strange - it has masses of potential but Cambodia's still catching up with the rest of Asia where tourism is concerned, we keep forgetting it's the 10th poorest country in the world. There's real problems with street children etc here but Ali's been doing our bit to help since she found a shop who's proceeds go to helping them learn a trade for the future - a good justification to buy some clothes ;-)

We're off on a tour of the Ream National Park a bit later, having spent the last 2 days chilling on the beach by the pool we feel the need to do something! Looking forward to it actually as there's a swim in the K'bal Chhay waterfall included plus an hour on a secluded beach! We've both really enjoyed ourselves here, food and ambience been good and v. relaxing, and we're not looking forward to heading back to Phnom Penh tomorrow (20th) but only way to get anywhere else!

We're off to Ho Chi Minh (Siagon) in Vietnam at 6.30am on the 21st - yet another bus trip to look forward to ...

Our next update features the Travelling Percivals, Live from Vietnam ...

Ps photos will feature on the blog soon - difficult to do from here as many places don't allow uploads and those that do are soooo slow!