Crossing the border of Thailand to Cambodia by bus was an adventure in its self. The buses are not allowed to go beyond a certain point when you get to the border so we had to walk the rest of the way. Imagine carrying a 60 litre backpack in the scorching sun, waiting for a fed up looking Cambodian to check your passport and visa. I digress, because the real adventure started once I got to the city of Siem Reap, home to the beautiful Ankor Wat temple. The temple among tourists is famous for its breath taking sunrise experience. As a result I got up at 4 o’clock to catch the sunrise and it was worth it. I had never seen so many different colours in the sky and the temple was such an amazing backdrop.

From Siem Reap we moved to the capital city, Phnom Penh via local bus.The buses played loud Khmer pop music all the way to the city it was annoying but after a while we start singing along.  Phnomm Pehn was such a beautiful city but it is rooted with a dark history. One cannot go to Phom Penh without visiting the Killing Fields (The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia  where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried by the Communist Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975). The mass killings are widely regarded as part of a broad state-sponsored genocide (the Cambodian genocide). This horrible history aside I fell in love with the National Museum and the Royal Palace. I do have to confess that the city is extremely hectic and a little confusing. Especially when you are navigating everywhere by foot.

The next city we visited was Sihanoukville, its a sleepy beach town and  a far contrast from the city of Phnom Penh which is a lot busier. Most of our time was spent swimming and relaxing by the back. We went snorkeling during the day which was amazing and at night the nightlife on the beach was absolutely crazy. Imagine being in a small sleepy beach town in Cambodia, in a shack that is also a club, where hardly anyone speaks English and the DJ starts playing “Hot N***a” I screamed, died, resurrected and turned all the way up.

We ended our last night in Cambodia with a Home Stay. Where we took a boat ride along the Mekong Delta and ended up staying with a local family. We were taught how to make local meals and were treated to a feast. I won’t lie i definitely slept with one eye open but it was an amazing experience. One thing I have not mentioned and I think I will not do the country of Cambodia proud if I don’t, is show amazing the food was. Food was everywhere, it was fresh, it was cheap and it was extremely tasty. I love food so I was in holiday heaven.

Killing Fields Story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields