Somewhere in Siam Reap

Yesterday we have arrived to Siam Reap, located in Cambodja. Yes, it is a very different country to Thailand, in many respects. Visibly much poorer and disorganised (begging and children working on the streets, non-existent in Thailand, is overwhelming in Cambodja). We are also as tourists strongly recommended to use the american dollar which can make day-to-day expenses significantly more expensive than what we were used to with the Thai baht.

The drive from Bangkok to Siam Reap (Angkor's nearest city) was in itself the most adventurous, and simultaneously the worst travel, we have ever been in (brought back memories of that back-slapping adventure and a nasty doctor 28 years ago!). We had to change buses at the border, for a number of reasons: opportunity to sell more things like food and drinks, etc., but mainly because the road from the Thai border to Siam Reap is absolutely non-existent, a rollercoaster ride which I will certainly recommend to implement to the Disneyland Resort manager once we are in Orlando. And I can assure you, this would be the scariest ride you have ever been in, 3 hours of back-breaking, suspension-cracking, dust-infected, 20-years old taxi ride - and this was the best option - we met up with some Fins with whom we organised the above mentioned taxi, otherwise the rest of the bunch from Thailand was stuck 21 people in a normal-sized pickup truck on a 6 hours journey which changed the colour of their skin, hair, backpags and probably even the typically white cells in their blood a disgusting hue of orange.

And why did we go through all this hell? Simply for this:

Angkor is truly the eight wonder in the world, and although it is hard to convey just how beautiful it is we hope that the photos we will at some stage upload will do justice to the magic of the ancient place, with its enigmatic faces looking out of imposing temples, amazing real-estate I tell you! (incidentally the photos on Ko Chang are all uploaded)

Plans have yet changed again incidentally. Bureaucratic reasons forced us to do a "small" detour to Phnon Penh, the capital of Cambodja. This should allows us for a 6-hour bus across this enigmatic country of Cambodja, and from then we catch the local RyanAir (called Air Asia) flight back to Bangkok, from where we move on straight away to the north of Thailand, more precisely Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai.
Until then, we have two more days of temple hopping in Angkor, with our private tuk-tuk driver named Boner (no joke!)