Now 8.20 pm on Tuesday, 11 March in Kompong Cham, staying in a really interesting and challenging place right on the Mekong river.

The Internet Cafe will close at 9.00 pm, will have to type really fast and try and get as much news in as possible, wish I'd been more organised and had written more often. So much happens on trips like these, it took days just to catch up with handwritten journal.

Tuesday, 2 March, arrived Bangkok 5.30 am. Took a taxi to Sukhumvit Guesthouse, very nice, all three of us sharing a room, it has an aircon and fan! Very hot, thank God for the aircon and fan. We found the BTS (their metro train), went to the MBK mall and bought myself mens cargo shorts and some T-shirts, as I had been determined not too pack too much. Dylan, likewise needed walking shoes and we walked into lots of shops, but the shoes were all as expensive as in South Africa. I bought a Fuji digital camera and 8 GB memory card, now I'm ready to take lots of photos! Found a Tesco for potato chips, towel for Colin and bottles of water. Still couldn't find Dylan some shoes at the night market, I bought 2 T-shirts for R35, Dylan had lovely beef noodle soup called pho, R7, I had pork rice and bokchoi R8 and Coke.

As expected, the pillows were rock hard, so I was soooo pleased I had brought the mini down pillow, arranged it inside Chantal's pink travelling cushion and put it all inside a pillowcase, very comfortable.

Wednesday, 3 March

Up at 9.10 am, breakfast of toast and jam, VERY strong coffee, thank goodness I had kept some of the airline Milk Maid milk and coffee creamer. Bought bus tickets to Arunyaprathet, R50 each, will take 4 hours. More shops for shoes, expensive Paragon dept store has an Imax and will be showing Alice in Wonderland in 3D, must see that when we get back. More shops looking for Dylan's shoes, another mall, back to MBK mall, finally found shoes. Had a great meal in a local eating place - phad tai seafood for BHT 50 (R14).

Thursday, 4 March

Taxi to bus station. Got to Arunyaprathet border town at 12.30 pm, very impressed that the trip had only taken 4 hours, apparently the buses often break down. Tuk tuk drivers were waiting, asked a tout to get one to take us to Poipet border. After 5 mins the female tuk tuk driver turned off the main road into a driveway and stopped in front of a patio where tourists were being assisted with completing a visa entry form and health declaration by extremely helpful "officials". I said I'd never come across such a friendly reception by order officials. Then they asked that we pay them THB1,200. I said I didn't have enough Baht and that we were supposed to pay in Dollars ($25). They insisted we must pay them in Baht. Dylan walked around the corner and disappeared. I asked Colin to ask the official for his ID card, which was tucked into his pocket, Colin said he was apparently an agent. Our "official" flashed a passport with a Cambodian visa in front of us and said it was an official visa. Dylan came back and told us to gather the rucksacks and follow him to the Cambodian Consulate next door. The Cambodian consulate employee still wanted Baht, this time THB1,000, which we scratched together (just), as we'd not expected to have to pay in Baht. The tuk tuk driver (whom we had paid when we got to the "Visa Centre"was still waiting for us, very honest I must say. We walked back to where the tuk tuk was parked and those guys just wanted us out of the way ASAP, Dylan still wanted to warn the other tourists who were arriving, that this was a scam, but Colin said it would get ugly, so we left.

Extremely hot! Must be at least 38 deg C. Waited in a large room with about 5 Thai officials stamping out about 100 people, we were melting, it was so hot. Then walked a few meters in the boiling sun in Poipet to the Cambodian border office. Poipet is really a one horse town, with some very flashy hotels and a casino for people who mistime their arrival at the border and are forced to stay over. It's very dusty!

Then waited in a stiflingly hot room with about 50 other people to get stamped into Cambodia by 3 officials. Dylan always makes friends and found Swedish Philip to join us in a taxi ($20 - $30) to Siem Reap. When we left the building Colin said there was a free bus to take us to the bus station, where we could find a taxi. Wanted until the 30 seater bus filled up, a very chatty 25 or so year old stood cracking jokes in broken English and charming people until we got to a brand new building, about 8 mins out of town. Thought this was strange until we realised that they had brought us to their private bus station, for people taking the International buses!!! Another scam. Turned out that a seat on their bus was $9 and a seat in a taxi would cost $12, so we refused to give them any more money than was necessary and got onto the bus, which they promised would leave at 3.00 pm, but of course we had to wait another 30 mins for the bus to fill up, in a stiflingly hot bus!! I thought I was so organised, had packed the purple fleece jacket into my daypack in case the aircon got turned up and I got cold, fat chance! We were all quite hungry by now, ate the packets of potato chips, Dylan had the peanuts I had kept from the plane and drank LOTS of bottled water. We would from now on be carrying around lots of bottles every day.

Got to Siem Reap at 7.00 pm as the sun was starting to go down. Tuk tuk drivers were waiting at the depot and we chose one to take us to Bun Nath Guesthouse and if we didn't like it, we would find another one. We were furious when we discovered it would cost 5,000 Riel EACH to get into town. The tuk tuk was only geared to carry 2 people, but all 3 of us squeazed in, with the rucksacks and daypacks. Passed many very expensive hotels in National Rd before arriving at Bun Nath. Dylan and I checked the room, fabulous, aircon and fan, TV, bar fridge, lovely tiled floors, magnificent wooden banister going up to 4 floors. The bathroom was a wet room as usual, so if one showers the whole floor and toilet gets wet - no separate shower. Dylan found Supersport 1 and 2 on TV and found the highlights of the Twenty20 cricket, Cobras vs the Warriors, surreal.

Marvellous to have a cold shower, it's so hot one can't imagine having a hot shower - totally unlike me. After we'd all showered and changed into fresh clothes, shorts and T-shirts, we walked out and found Pub Street easily and checked out the restaurants before deciding on a small place on the corner where most meals of pho noodle broth with pork, beef, chicken or seafood or fried noodles and veg and pork/beef/chicken/seafood cost $1. Dylan and Colin had Lao beer and I had Coke, then moved to another pub and each had a draught beer for $0.50.

Will have to carry on tomorrow maybe, heading off to Kratie tomorrow morning at 9.00 am and hope to see lots of Irrawaddy dolphins there and try and chill after all the running around in Siem Reap.

I apologise for the blog being so disjointed, will get it into shape in the next few days.

Luv
Tammy