It's now two weeks since we left the waterfalls of Tadlo (Lao) and even though the days are flying by, we're still left with a very good taste from this beautiful part of the world.

Our plans of entering Cambodia from Lao took a bit of a diversion after we did some investigation into the practicalities of doing this; and then compared the crossing from Thailand. In the end, we decided to briefly go back into Thailand, before then crossing into Cambodia.

Why would you want to do that, I'm sure some of you are thinking? The answer was "simplicity" really. We would have required a prearranged Cambodian visa before attempting the crossing from Lao, whereas one can be easily obtained at the border with Thailand (less waiting around and less cost). Also, the more we looked into it, the more the route through northen Cambodia was starting to sound like a hassle-filled "pain-in-the-ass" (in this case you can take that literally, given the state of the roads). Let's just say that, at this point in our extended travels, the limited options of getting around were not too appealing.

On entering Thailand, we were a bit in awe of how well things seemed to be set up. Having got used to the small, simple shops that are found throughout Lao, the supermarkets here seemed a bit on the extravagant side. I'm sure the space-age malls in Singapore would have been way too much for us to handle at this stage!

We made some good use of our time in this Eastern part of Thailand by taking a day out to see our first Khymer ruins at Panom Rung. On top of that, we stocked up on as much cash as possible because Cambodia still does not have any ATM's (that we could use)!

Feeling refreshed from our stopover, we were ready for the adventure to come...

As soon as we crossed the border from Thailand to Cambodia (at Poi Pet), we were bombarded with all kinds of hangers on trying to "help" us get around. Ridiculous figures were being thrown around for how much it was going to cost us to get to Siem Reap (which was supposed to be about 4 hours away), so we stepped past all this madness to see what we could find in the town. Unfortunately after a hot, sweaty walk through the dusty, rubbish-covered streets, we hadn't come up with much else. The choice was either an expensive taxi now or a few hours wait for a slow (and still quite expensive) bus to whisk us away. When a taxi rolled up beside us and an English guy (who had crossed the border at the same time as us) asked if we wanted to share, we were only too happy to accept. From his passenger seat, he confirmed that it would take us about three and a half hours to reach our final destination. Little did we know, but our driver was about to shatter this estimate down to nearly two hours!

Taking off at about ninety along the bumpy, sandy road we were pinned to our seats, trying to take in our first sights of Cambodia. In a style of driving that could best be described as a mix of Colin McRae with Michael Schumacher, we were jolted around as the driver used whatever part of the road he saw fit to continue the way forward. His technique of using the horn as an alternative to the brake was certainly resourceful, if nothing else. We later found out that this fits the normal description of driving in Cambodia, although the speeds are not usually so high.

We took a day off to recuperate from the journey, but the next day we bought a three day pass to visit the famous ruins of Angkor Wat. People from all over the world come to see this symbol of Cambodia, so there was a fair number of buses rolling up on a daily basis here. Not surprisingly, this also meant that there were many locals selling all sorts of things around the area. While they were quite persistant, they were generally good-natured and added more to the experience than they took.

The first day, we got up at 4:30 am and took a remorque-moto (a carriage drawn by a motorbike) to catch the sunset at the most famous of the temples here, Angkor Wat. Barely able to keep our eyes open, after the early start, we struggled on. The rest of the day was used to go around one of the circuits of the area, where we caught most of the main sights.

While this was all well and good, to allow ourselves some more freedom to explore the surroundings, we rented some bicycles for the next couple of days. Thankfully the area was all flat and over our remaining days we racked up about 80 kms under our own steam. Our curiosity about the ruins, was well and truly satisfied by this stage.

The temples that we most liked were those that were least restored and one in particular, Ta Phrom, stood out above the rest (incidentily, this was used recently enough for scenes in "Tomb Raider" and 'Two Brothers"). It was amazing to see the awesome power of nature at this temple, as many ancient-looking trees had taken over parts of the buildings and engulfed them with it's roots and branches over the years.

I'll leave you with some of our favourite photos so you can get the idea.