From the sublime to the shit in 24 hours...

Today would be the last day of our three day Angkor Wat experience and in a way, despite being by far the shortest trip, was in some respects the best. For this day we would be getting picked up at around 5am, meaning getting up ridiculously early. Getting into the tuk-tuk in the dark you could almost be back at home on a dark winters morning, on our way to work. Just without the tuk-tuks, although southsea is definitely missing them.

Arriving at Angkor wat we knew immediately that we were vastly under prepared. Surrounding by people with tripods, telephonic lenses and torches the sight of the two of us in vests and flip flops must have seemed a tad strange, if not expected...

As we walked over the large moat towards the temple entrance you began to get a sense of just how popular and busy this sacred place can get. Here, at five in the morning, stood literally hundreds of people all gathered around the pond adjacent to the temple jostling to take their perfect shot of this impressive sight. Thing is, much like any other arresting tourist sight, people take so long jockeying for that perfect snap that they miss the whole point of the experience. At one point a german woman, with typical german chivalry, stood about a centimetre away from our ears whilst she snapped away on a contraption that if pointed at the moon above us would possibly have seen Neil Armstrong's footprint.

In the end the wait was worth it as we were presented with a beautiful red sky indented by the silhouette of Angkor wat in front. We hung around for a while, trying to take it all in before heading back in the tuk-tuk to catch an hours sleep before our next adventure of the day, a cambodian cooking class!

Upon arriving, the pupils were split into three groups of five and told to follow our teacher into the adjacent Market to buy the produce for the days lesson. I picked fresh spring rolls (comprising rice paper, lettuce, snake beans, sweet basil, cucumber, carrots, beansprouts and prawns) and chicken amok (amok paste, carrots, onions, stock and coconut milk). Shell picked the deep fried pork spring rolls (that's her Scottish half) and Khmer curry. We had an awesome day here, the teacher was great and the choice of things to learn to cook was extraordinary. Unlike the cooking 'class' that we attended in bali this was a full on experience, really helping you to memorise these dishes for future use. Both shell and I were in our element and after two and a half months on the road was a welcome change to being cooked for, having the ability to be fully self-sufficient is something I don't ever want to take for granted...

After sitting down and both trying and failing to eat through the mountain of food in front of us we were on our way to sort our tickets for our mammoth journey north to Laos in the morning. We got a number of quotes from a fair few travel agents and in the end plumped for the most expensive as it was, apparently, both a direct bus and also VIP, meaning that we were 100% certain to at least have the obligatory air conditioning. Oh how wrong we would be.

Back at the hotel we spent the afternoon relaxing in our room as we had had a maximum of three hours sleep for the past few nights. During this time we found accommodation in pakse and, foolishly in hindsight, paid the total before we set off. I don't quite know why we did this, maybe due to it being a strange new country?

That night we only had a small bite in town before saying our last proper goodbyes to Cambodia before heading into Laos. Although we have only been here for 7 days, I don't think I have been to a place which dishes out the beautiful and the blatantly messed up in such equal quantities.

After only another three or four hours sleep we were up at 4am once again in preparation to be picked up at 5am. After waiting for an hour we were suddenly told to get into a big mercedes which then proceeded to take us all of twenty metres down the road, stopping next to a decrepit old bus and hauling our bags onboard. We thought this was quite normal, apart from the mercedes bit, as we have boarded other buses like this which have then taken us to another bigger bus, plus we had also paid extra money for a VIP bus! After being driven around siem reap by cambodia's answer to the chuckle brothers for an hour we were then on our way, without any sign of a change in bus.

After around three hours the lack of any a/c started to become a problem. Everyone on there, mainly brit's and a smattering of French, were driven insane both by the heat and also the idiot driver's use of the horn. It was as loud as one of those they use to start a race sometimes, in fact it was one of those! He also insisted on travelling the whole way, nine hours in the end, with door wide open! All so he could smoke, and throw foreigners off the bus when he wanted, probably.

Anyway, after passing a town called kampang cham which we thought was to be our place to change busses, we started to feel the opening pangs of anger. Eventually we stopped, nine hours later at a place called memot where were told to 'get off', in those words. He also said we would be changing buses although nothing 'resembling' a bus was anywhere to be found. After fifteen minutes or so an even smaller vehicle arrived (think people carrier) and started, no jokes here, to tie our luggage onto the back with small pieces of rope. To top our joy off the two guys who were given the task of taking us onwards looked about as suspicious as a couple of Khmer rouge soldiers left over to make westerners lives as miserable as possible. After remonstrating, quite loudly, with the first driver, I was from that point on, in their eyes anyway, group spokesman. As we set off it became completely apparent that these jokers were having the time of their lives transporting this car full of cattle, sorry tourists, on into Laos. Unfortunately for us they insisted on stopping every hour, for no apparent reason. In the end it became clear that they were taking their time for a more sinister reason. We all knew that the border closes at 5pm and although leaving at 5.30am had taken every opportunity to hold up our journey to make sure that when we got to stung treng, the closest town to the border, we would either have to stay in one of their hotels and leave the next day or, as on our case, kick up a massive fuss so that they make a couple of corrupt phone calls to get us over the border after hours, all with an added bribe of course. Thing is, even before I spoke to the 'border official' on the phone, passed from the bossman, another van (smaller again) had pulled up alongside. As if by magic we no longer had to stay in stung treng but could pay an extra 'charge' to the border officials and go over the border. After arriving at the border and doing the first dodgy officialities we were then told that the officials, this time on the Laos side, wanted an extra three dollars each. So after being scammed, conned and whittled down to angry westerners in an otherwise peaceful country we were then faced with the grim proposition of paying over $100 for two visa's that we knew over half of which would go in the back pocket of some official or another. Managing to organise another small bus to take us onwards into Laos we were then told that we wouldn't be going onwards to pakse and that we would have to stay in the village where we had stopped or get on a boat to go to Don Det, an island where four of the eight guys on the bus were heading. This was the last straw. I went beserk, along with a few other guys. I have not been that angry since I was an angry, naive teenager.

In the end the owner of the company, who had virtually been killed upon us learning of his position within the company, scampered away, throwing our bags off the bus in the process. This left us, along with two young American girls effectively stuck in the dark, in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. In the end we followed the other guys by paying yet more money for a boat to take us to don det, a place we could stay the night before carrying onto pakse in the morning. Although we now knew we had lost the money we paid for the hotel in pakse we managed to find a small bungalow which, for 2 pounds a night, wouldn't break the bank. Despite a couple of large cockroaches it wasn't too bad and we were thankful for a place we could finally lay our heads after a day that in anyone's eyes was sent straight from hell.

We had a good time in Cambodia but the corruption is mind-blowing, not just in our experience. If you are flying into siem reap, having a few days in Angkor before flying out again, I can think of few better places but to scratch below the surface, by travelling over land and you are faced with almost endless scams. Makes for a great experience though!

Anyway, tomorrow we go onto pakse then get straight on a night bus to take us all the way to Vientiane! A plane ride is most certainly on the horizon though.....

Much love, tommo xxxx