Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Sat typing this email from the internet cafe of our latest guesthouse in Sihanoukville, after leaving Siem Reap last night by sleeper bus. We found Siem Reap to be quite expensive - especially the entrance fees for the Angkor Wat Temples, which are admittedly, well worth seeing and cover a huge area so we bought a two day ticket costing $40. We watched the sunset over Angkor Wat on our second evening, which involved climbing some very narrow and steep steps to the top of the temple which had amazing views. We then got up at 5am the next morning to watch the sunrise over Bayon Temple and spent the rest of the morning walking around the different locations - one of the temples was used in the filming of the Tomb Raider film apparently! Couldn't get over how hot it was at only 8am that day!

We also had a bit of sorting out to do with regard to our visas for entry into Vietnam - these need to be applied for before crossing the border, so we searched round a few places for a reliable organiser and also went to have some passport photos taken. We eventually found the fujifilm shop after a while, and went upstairs to the photo studio to have professional passport photos taken (weren't expecting that at all!) - they came out airbrushed - pink cheeks and everything!! As we sat downstairs at the desk to pay for the photos, the Cambodian women were staring at us and then one said "Bweautifuullllll" and pointed to our skin!! So the lack of tan at the moment is working in our favour it seems!

Have to say we're getting a bit annoyed whenever we go somewhere for a visit and get totally bombarded by children trying to sell us bangles or postcard books. We swear when these children are born their first words must be "one dollar??" They will really follow us pestering us to buy their things and it does get a bit annoying!!

After spending one morning at the temples we then visited a floating village just outside of Siem Reap, the boat trip and scenery was great, had to dodge a few tourist traps though when they took us to a shop to ask us to buy exercise books for the children for $15 for a small pack! We don't think so!

After a few days in Siem Reap we really felt like chilling out on a beach so took the night bus last night to Sihanoukville. Unfortunately, rainy season has kinda spoilt it for us and the forcast is pretty crap, so we're currently looking at entering Vietnam sooner than we thought so that we can catch the better weather. Going to go out tonight in Sihanoukville and enjoy ourselves first though!

Laters!