Siem Reap

hello all! mcgee here guest blogging for Josh...

So after a sleepless night of listening to the band playing asian
country rock til oh my god way past when any normal human could listen
to it we got up to make our way to the border town. Everyone had told
us how we needed to watch out because the Cambodian border agents are
completely corrupt and will always try to scam you out of money so we
were kind of wary when we got there of what they might ask for. Plus
also we had no idea how to get to Siem Reap but since things had
worked out well so far we decided to hazard it.
Queueing up in the foreigners section we wedged ourselves between
couple after couple of old white menn with thai bride types (seriously
its more uncommon to see and old white man with an old white woman
here). I think they go for the gambling that's in the weird no-mans
land between Cambodia and thailand called Poipet. It's like half a k
wide and all it contains is the border controls and 4 casinos.

We got a share cab from the border to Sien Riep which is where all the
Angkor temples are- or should i say the Tomb Raider temples. Driving
through it was clear that close as it is to thailand, Cambodia is very
different. For a start tarmac roads are kind of rare and scattered
along them are shanty towns and empty fields that don't look like they
can grow anything. It's a hangover from the Khmer Rouge era when
basically the whole place had the sh*t bombed out of it. For anyone
who doesn't know much about it (like me and Josh) the whole Pol Pot
regime was completely devestating to the country and there was
something crazy like two million people killed in just a few years. He
killed everyone,literally everyone, who was educated at all, or who
was politically opposed or even who wore glasses. So now Cambodia is
building itself back up again but it's still pretty scarred. As a
result of all this though there is this strange thing where all the
business people are incredibly young, like our age. You definatley get
the feeling that the young people are driving the country forward.
Every market stall and tuk tuk and restaurant, even our hotel is run
by someone under 30.

Today we went along to the temples which was an epic tour of like 12
temples including Ta Prohm which is totally overrun with jungle vines
and giant tree roots. Basically its seriously cool, but only if you
are there and can see it so i won't bore you with the details. Just
maybe a picture or 20.