Hi from a very sunny Cambodia!

Hello all,

We have been in Cambodia for a week now so we thought we'd better give you a little update.

We had a very interesting trip overland from Bangkok. We heard loads of horror stories about 'Scam Buses' taking tourists across the border and dumping them at random hotels in the middle of the night so we decided to take the local transport. Despite having to get up at a ridiculous time in the morning and being a little conned by the immigration guards at the border (all too common) we made it to Siem Reap in record timing.

Sadly the border crossing at Poi Pet doesn't give a great first impression, but thankfully that doesn't last long. The people are really lovely here and there is loads of great stuff to see.

We started our stay in Siem Reap by visiting the temples of Angkor. Wow there are a lot of temples. We spent 2 full days traveling between as many as we could fit in. They are pretty amazing. We really loved Angkor Thom. The trees are growing through the temple and it makes quite a spectacular sight.

Once we got slightly templed out we made our way to the stilted village of Kompong Phhluck. It's set next to a huge lake and spends most of the year under water. The houses are all raised up on 7m high stilts. It's just the start of the dry season now so a tiny bit of land was showing.
We spent the day there and had a fantastic lunch in one of the houses.

We also went on a little dug-out boat through the flooded mangrove forest. It was so peaceful and really really beautiful.
This photo doesn't quite do it justice.

After Siem Reap we headed on a boat down the river to Battambang. The boat trip was one of those '3-8 hour journeys' and of course it took 8 hours. There were are lot of bad rumors about the boats breaking down but it is meant to be one of hte most scenic boat trips in the country. You pass floating villages, wet lands and not to mention really narrow waterways where you get battered by all of the trees on the way past!!

Battambang itself is pretty run down and doesn't see much tourism. We did manage to do a cooking course and made 3 delicious courses of Khmer food. (which Matt is looking forward to testing out on some of you soon!)

The photo is our cooking instructor buying fish at the market. All of the fish are alive and they just kill and sell them on the spot. We have many more interesting photos from the market, including a couple that we'll need to keep far away from the the frog crazy Selina.

We arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday so will save that for the next entry. We are heading the the Killing Fields tomorrow so our next entry may not be quite so cheery.

We keep forgetting that it's Christmas soon. Hope you're all getting in to the festive spirit!!
Take care
Us x