Julia Rose's Excellent Adventure!: Cambodia Continued!

Christian and I had the most amazing time in Cambodia! After a good relax on Monkey Island, we returned to Phnom Penh to check out more of the city. We went to the Killing Fields and S21 which I found really hard as they are the places Pol Pot and others imprisoned and killed a lot of the Cambodian people. We also got to see more of the city and had some fantastic food at a couple of restaurants that employ and support street children. One of our starters was tarantulas!! MMmmm! The next morning we jumped on a bus to Siem Reap and instantly warmed to the town. We were greeted at our hotel by a golden retriever named Pickles and a cat named Branston...so cute. Its run by an English guy named Smiley who was really helpful for suggesting things for us to do which was great because we probably saw more than we would have otherwise. Our first day we rented a dune buggy and set off to explore the backroads of the Siem Reap countryside. We were out all day with two guides and got to see some fantastic stuff, including a family making fresh rice noodles, a BEAUTIFUL waterfall, some great stone statues dating back before Angkor Wat, a bat cave, and MILLIONS of smiley waving children! The next day we went up to see the temples of Angkor which was totally breathtaking. They are absolutely enormous and obviously a fantastic site to see! That evening we headed to the floating village which was a nice surprise and was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We were hoping to catch the sunset on the water, but it was a bit too cloudy for that...despite the extreme heat during the day! Next we decided to see more of the temples in a different way...birds eye view! We each went on microlite flights over the temples and Siem Reap which was incredible!!!! Our pilot, Eddie, is an American guy from Virginia and was lots of fun and very informative up in the air! Along with having a lot to say about George Bush, he also filled me in on a lot of the Cambodian culture. Siem Reap as a town is really great, and we both really enjoyed our stay. Like Hanoi, it has a Parisian feel to it with little alleys and side streets, along with a great night market. People were incredibly friendly, especially in the countryside.
We're in Bangkok now after a fun minivan journey with 11 other backpackers. We celebrated St. Patrick's day last night with lots of delicious Thai food and a guiness of course! We went "temple-ing" today and saw more of the centre of Bangkok. We booked in a Thai cooking class tomorrow morning which I'm really excited for!! Unfortunately Christian has to fly back to London tomorrow night :( but we've had a super time!