Day Two Since we were having difficulty sitting down, Tim and I decided it would be best if we left the bikes (and their hard seats) behind today and took a Tuk Tuk to visit the temples. We found a nice driver by the name of Saing who carted us off to the mother of all temples, Angkor Wat herself. Having ridden by Angkor Wat on our bikes the pre...

Woke up at 7am so that we could set off early to Siem Reap. And guess what, our mode of transport was still the same white toyota. The journey was long and bumpy, well at least for the first 1 hours as we crawled through the slump areas outside of Phnom Penh. We were enjoying our scenic view when the car slowed down and stopped. The driver then ...

After the ingenious plan to pull an all-nighter so that we would sleep the whole way from Cambodia to Vietnam we boarded the 8hr bus to Phnom Pehn. Of course what we failed to take in to account was the border crossings and Cambodia's miserable infrastructure. After getting through the Vietnamese checkpoint without any problems despite overstayi...

With the temples of Angkor Wat top of our travel list, we expected to be impressed and moved by their beauty and amazed they had survived after almost 900 years of being lost to the jungles of Cambodia. What we didn't expect was how much we would be touched by the suffering and poverty of the country which is only matched by the incredible resil...

Gill and I went for a massage by the blind in Phenom Pehn. This is where we are guaranteed skillful and trained masseurs with no "extra services". The idea is that the money raised is ploughed back into providing employment for blind people in Cambodia. We both opted for a medium strength Japanese style massage. I must have come as a bit of a sh...

We arranged for a driver to pick us up at our guesthouse at 8 a.m. to take us to the temples. At first I thought that it was a tuk-tuk that we would be driven around in but upon closer inspection it turns out to be a sort of a trailer attached to a motorcycle. Anyway, it's the best form of transport for the conditions: Faster and safer than a bi...

Final updates and thoughts * Aki Ra still remains in hospital but Hourt remains by his side and Grandmas is sending her prayers to the gods with each gambling windfall, I'm sure. * Grandma is the proud owner of an almost-red bath towel, unmbrella and various other goodies that have collected themselves in my bag this trip. No dentistry miracles,...

Hello again. Still in the past a bit, but catching up.... After leaving our holiday home of Bangkok, it was back on the road again to do a bit more 'real' travelling. We started off at an unsociable hour and got ourselves a couple of train tickets to take us to Aranhya Prathet, the furthest east you can go in Thailand. Some amazing scenery on th...

The next stop was Preah Rup, built 961. Then to East Mebon, built by the same king as Preah Rup, in the second half of the 10th century. It is a Hindu temple (the early buildings are generally Hindu as compared to Buddhist). Then to Ta Som (a small late 12th century Buddhist temple), Neak Pean (late 12th century- a temple in a lake) and Preah Kh...