Cambodia

Arhhhhhh christmas on a beach, something i have always dreamed of. Shianokville isnt too large a place but it has all you need. On christmas eve we went out for a nice meal and a few bevys. On christmas morning we all opened our presents from each other, i got a sexy pair of cambodian pj's and a shell wind chime. We then went and caught the boat out to Bamboo Island, a lovely tropical island off the coastwhere we spent the rest of the day. We sipped champagne and swam in the sea....it was lovely...(sorry if im making any of you jelous! :o)

Just on the beach there is a place that helps children make money and help them be more creatvie. The children paint pictures that they sell, some of the money goes to them and some towards the place and towrds giving them food. It s a great thing to do. We go 3 kids to paint us all 3 sitting together at the same time.

After a 5 hr boat trip we finally arrived in Phenom Phen to be greeted by the usually bussel of people wanting to drag us to each of their guest houses. So we hopped in a tuk tuk and did our usual Jesus of Nazareth thing and moved around from place to place taking a look.

In the end we decided on Same Same But Different. And boy were we glad. Its 3$ a night and its a wicked place. One of the best we have stayed in. The guy who runs it is called SAm and he can help you get anything you want.

We chilled out the first night, drinking some beers, playing some pool and chilling by the lake. The next day we decided to go and shoot some BIG guns at the army base. We hired a tuk tuk driver called Paddy who took us there.
We all shot an AK 47 (i know im a girl but boy did it have a kick!!) i was quite proud of myself i managed to hit the target afew times!! Then the boys shot an M-60, the rambo gun I think.

After the gun we headed for the go karting track. Needless to say i lost badly....they lapped me !!!! enough said.

Time for some culture...we headed to the Killing Fields, where Po Pot killed thousands of people. Unfortunatly we manged to get the worst guide of the bunch who just repeated 'Very Bad' about 5,000 times....... not worth our 5$.

That night we had organised to have Snake!!! (yup the silthery things...) it took alot of organising as im not too sure it all too legal but in the end sam managed to get us a nice Cobra and some rice wine. Together with other people from the place we nibbled on snake and sipped the blood and the venom...!! (mixed with the rice wine...which has quite a kick!!) .............i dont remember going to bed that night..........

The next morning was not an early start....after dragging ourselves out of bed we headed to a market to buy some stuff to take to an orphanage. If anyone goes to Phenom Phen i def recommend doing this. We went and bought a bag of 50Kilo rice, some pens, note books, toothbrushes, toothpaste and a football for them. Once there we were given a guided tour, the kids were so lovely, i have some great pictures, they love it if you take their pic then show them on your digital camera.

The next morning we left for Shianokville by taxi.....

The day after we arrived we took a tuk tuk to the Floating Village. We hired our own boat to take us out on to the lake. The floating village was pretty cool although not as big as i thought it would be. As we drove past one part of lake bit there was smoke bellowing out of it and our driver told us that someone was being cremated !!
After a nice but dirty swim in the lake we visited a fish farm, which is really just a ploy to get tourists to buy something.
That evening we headed to ankor wat to try and see if we could catch a sunset...it wasnt a brilliant night for it unfortunatly.

The next day we hired motorbike drivers to take us around the temples. First stop was the one with all the faces..(i forget the name) it was very beautiful, amazing detail and its pretty cool cos you can clamber all over it. (i did feel alittle bad but we are never allowed to touch anything in england) We also visited the temple with the trees where Tomb Raider was filmed, fed some naughty monkeys, who tried to steal my camera, some bananas and then renegotiated our terms with the drivers to be able to go and see the sunset at the top of one of the temples. Unfortunatly for us there was no sunset that night!!! dohhhh....

The next day we took the early morning boat (very early!!) to Phenom Phen.

Now there are 3.....We managed to find John hanging around the Ko San road and the next day we headed for Cambodia. After missing the first train we caught the last one by the skin of our teeth. Unfortunatly it turned out to be the equivelant of the slow boat to china but we eventually arrived at the border in the dark. It was shut so we had to spent the night. The town was a ghost town, nothing was going, altho we did come across a random rather tempremental elephant and fed it bananas.

The next day we headed to the border. The hotel did this big sell on a bus you can get, luxurious to siem reap...air con etc...... (YEH RIGHT!!!!) Even after reading all about the 'Scam Bus' we still got sucked in!!! deerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...............

so we bought the tickets and got taken to this place where they tried to sell us the visas which i knew you can get on the border, but to save the argument we let them do it for us. We then got taken to the border on one bus, went through, got on another bus, got taken to a money exchange place where we all got screwed over. Then got another bus which took us to a bus station where we got another bus...
We were not amused....finally we set off along a long bumpy road...arriving at siem reap in the evening. They dropped us all off at this guest house (convienient) but we went somwerhe else.

few pointers:
from border to siem reap get a taxi...faster..abit more expensive but you wont get conned..and its worth it. Should be about 25$ to 35$ ish US$.
you can get visa on border dont listen to anyone who says you cant.
cambodia takes US$ dont change your money at the border you get screwed over.