Siem Reap, Cambodia

Today, Monday 15^th March, we took a bus up to Siem Reap, a fairly easy five hour trip north. We had the choice of either the bus ($11) or the boat ($35) both take around the same time, but apart from the cost of the boat, we'd heard it was very noisy. And it's nice to be able to stop along the way, as you can do when travelling by bus. We arrived at the bus stop, outside of the travel agency about 20 minutes early so Liam and I went around the block to see if we could get any fruit for the journey. But we couldn't find any so came back with new Nike baseball caps (genuine of course!) for $2 each instead. The bus left about 20 minutes late and was packed with foreigners (who pay more for their tickets) and locals. We stopped for lunch at Kompong Thom - cold drinks and stir fried vegetables and rice for $5, for all three of us. And really clean toilets.

It seems pretty weird using US dollars here, but Cambodian Riel are about 4200 to the dollar and whilst you get some in change and use them for small purchases, most things are advertised in dollars and that's what you get from ATMs.

When we arrived at Siem Reap bus station, Cliff saw a tuk-tuk driver with our name on a card who had been sent by our accomodation. It was just as well because there were loads of drivers there looking for customers fresh off the bus. But that was nothing, once we'd got our luggage off the bus (we had to wait for two motorbikes to be unloaded first), they opened the bus station gates (we hadn't realised they'd been closed behind the bus when we'd arrived). It was like the first day at the January sales, with about 50 drivers all running inside, cheering. I had to pull Liam back to avoid getting trampled.

The first thing that strikes you in Siem Reap is the dust and colour of the earth - red. We were staying at a French run place with a pool - $30 a night. Apparently you can get rooms here from $2 to $2000 so we're certainly mid-range. We thought we’d need a cooling swim after a long day at the temples.

We arrranged with our tuk-tuk driver to collect us at 10am the next morning to take us out to Angkor Wat and the temple complexes. This was going to cost us $15 for the whole day.

Siem Reap is a lively town, it has a good night market selling local crafts and lots of places to eat and drink. We were a ten minute walk from the centre, along a dusty road and practically no street lighting. We dropped off our bag of washing ($1 a kilo) with some lovely girls who took a real shine to Liam ('he's so handsome'!) We had some $1 rice and noodles for dinner and an early night.