After a magnificent two weeks in Thailand, it was time to move on to Cambodia.

I visited Siem Reap north of the island, before moving on to Phnom Penh (the capital) in the south.

The obvious attraction in Siem Reap was the Ankor Temples. Fortunately a Polish couple I’d met on the bus invited me to join them on their temple the next day. Little did I know it would involve a 4am wakeup to see the sunrise!

In typical rainy season fashion we didn’t catch any sunrise as clouds were far too prominent. The three of us were walking around like zombies as the 30degree sunshine decided to show it’s face at 8am.

In my opinion, the main temple (Ankor Wat) was a bit of a let down. Yes, I was fascinated by the magnitude of it and yes the moat surrounding the temple was impressive, but it was just a dark, run down temple!

The temples did however become more fascinating as we explored them throughout the day. The Ankor Thom was impressive with it’s faces engraved onto the walls. Also many temples had trees growing on top of their roofs, one which can be found in the movie Tomb Raider.

I believe it can take a good few days to explore the temples, however I was certainly ‘templed’ out after one day.

When we returned to the hotel I took a much needed siesta before taking a shower, splashing a ‘bit of Old Spice’ on and hitting the town.

A Moroccan girl from the guesthouse decided to join me. We went for some traditional Cambodian curry, before hitting the ‘Ankor What!?’ bar. This would be my home for the next four days!

The following night I went out with a few lads from the guesthouse. Once again in the Ankor What!? Bar, we decided it would be a good idea to buy 8 buckets between us and receive a free t-shirt each. The next morning I was a little worse for wear to say the least.

In addition to several party nights, I decided to experience every man’s boyhood dream & fire an m-16 and a machine gun. I resisted the temptation to blow up a cow as both the expense and morality of the whole thing got the better of me!

After the shooting range, the tuc tuc driver asked me to join him and his friends for a game of football. This was a fantastic experience being the only westerner there and that were so bad at football they actually made me look good.

After finally tearing myself away from the buckets of Ankor What?! Bar, I decided to escape from Siem Reap and head down to the capital Phnom Penh.

This was a much more different experience to that of Siem Reap, but equally enjoyable.

On the first night I wandered into a local seafood restaurant & sparked up a conversation with the singer & keyboard player. Before I knew it, I was in their local sharing some fine beverages and had a great night.

The following day they picked me up from the hotel and took me around the city. We visited the Royal Palace which has a striking resemblance to the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

They showed me the diamond bridge where 500people were killed in a stampede last year. I remember seeing this on the news back home.

We also visited s21, which was a school turned prison where Pol Pot tortured many victims before sending them to the killing fields for execution. The killing fields was a very chilling place to visit. Skulls & bones of the victims wee on display and you can actually see fragments of bones on the floor throughout the killing fields.

I took one final night of relaxation before continuing my journey to Vietnam.