Day 44 - 30th March 2009

An early start today to get our 4:30am taxi to the airport. We had booked it the day before with the hotel and when we checked out the taxi was waiting for us at the kerbside. Slightly worryingly the taxi driver was fast asleep inside his taxi and it took some banging on his window from the hotel staff before he emerged looking rather sleepy. On the plus side he got us to the airport quite quickly (though Liz thought perhaps a bit worryingly so and there may have been an incident with a level crossing which seemed to have flashing lights...) and his meter wasn't 'broken' so the fare was about a quarter of what the first chap was asking and half of what we actually paid the first chap.

So we got to the airport about 5am and headed to the Air Asia desk to see if anyone had handed in Liz's iPod and DS. There was a lost and found counter which seemed promising but the chap there said we needed to come back in half an hour to see the right person, then after half an hour he said another 15 minutes and when eventually we did get to see the 'right' person he said it hadn't been handed in so there wasn't much we could do :-(.

So with 90 minutes till our flight we headed towards our gate. The queues for passport control were huge and the staff seemed to be in no hurry about what they were doing. There were a few people who were getting agitated about missing their flights.

Eventually got thorugh and Liz got some breakfast at Burger King before we boarded our flight. The gate was one of these where you have to get on a bus which takes you to the plane and we had a nice chat with a couple from San Francisco who were also on their way to Cambodia.

After our shortest plane journey yet on this trip of just 40 minutes, during which time they managed to serve breakfast, we arrived in Cambodia at Siem Reap. The airport there is very small, but quite pretty in a traditional Cambodian design. Took us a little while to clear passport control as we had to apply for a visa on arrival, which was no problem just time consuming, then it was a taxi journey to our hotel.

The hotel was right in the centre of Siem Reap and was a very beautiful building set in some pretty gardens. It was only about 10am but luckily our room was ready for us and we took the opportunity to get a bit more sleep.

After that we headed out to find some lunch. As in Bangkok there are lots of Tuk Tuks which are constantly trying to give you lifts to places. One chap even followed us down the road and I must have said no to him about 4 times! We found somewhere from our guide book for lunch which was nice food and a good price too. (Plus the had air con which was a major plus point!)

After lunch we thought we would go and have a look round the old market and although it wasn't really that far by this time the midday sun was baking and we thought we might be better to give a tuk tuk a go. So on emerging from the restaurant who should we find outside but the Tuk Tuk driver who had chased us down the street. We negotiated his fare down to $1 and in about 5 minutes were at the old market.

Our first task was to arrange onwards travel to Phonm Phen where our next hotel was booked and where we would catch the plane to Hong Kong. We found a small shop which sold bus tickets and decided to go for the so called 'VIP' bus for an extra $2 each, the bus in the picture looked very modern and claimed to have free water, toilet and a hostess service!

We then wandered around the old market which sells all sorts of things from fruit and veg and meat to rows of souvenior stalls. Again we felt like there was an awful lot of stalls and not so many tourists, so all the stallholders were very keen to try and get us into their stall.

After a while we had had enough and feeling quite warm decided to stop for a drink. We managed to find the cheapest beer which I have ever had in a pub/restaurant. The local Angkor draft for an amazing 50 American cents (about 35p).

We headed back to our hotel and went for a very refreshing swim in their pool and then sat in the loungers by the side in the shade and read some of the guide book.

At the airport we had been handed a leaflet about the night market, which claimed that there was free wifi, so we decided to head over there and take a look. We didn't manage to find any free wifi but the market was interesting to wander round and we bought a few souveniors. They also had a rather strange 'fish massage' where you could put you feet in a big pool full of fish, which would then come and nibble at your feet. We decided to give that one a miss...

Then it was dinner at a mexican restaurant we had seen earlier in the day which again was very reasonably priced and back to our hotel and bed. At our hotel we spotted some local wildlife in the form of 2 geckos; which Liz says she would have quite liked to see, except for the fact that they were running around on our hotel room's ceiling!