Our flight back to Asia took us back to Kuala Lumpur for an overnight stop at the Tune Hotel in the airport before flying out to Siem Reap early next morning. Good job it was only one night as the room was pretty compact, we found it hard to find space for our two bags, each now weighing a paltry 10kgs (not bad for a six month trip don’t you think??!!).. However, it must have been a problem for the guys who checked in after us! The family had two very large suitcases big enough for a small child to fit in, plus they also had the small child. The child could have slept in the case if they could have found space to put it in the room in the first place.

Anyway, we’re now in Siem Reap which is the home of Angkor , a World heritage Site, consisting of Angkor Wat, the biggest religious building in the world plus over a 100 other temples & relics. The central site alone covers 25 sq km, and in its heyday, boasted a population of around 1m people at the time when London was a mere pimple at approx 50,000! So, you can imagine how much history exists here as the temples start from around 800 AD to go on until 1400 AD. The most recent note of interest is that Ta Prohm was used as the setting to film Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

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So far, our first impressions of Cambodia are very positive. The people seem genuinely friendly, easy going and relaxed. It’s hard to believe considering their recent history – Americans bombing the hell out of the country, including using the repulsive Agent Orange in the early 70’s, the butchering regime of the Khymer Rouge and the subsequent civil wars that continued until the 90’s. Siem Reap is a charming place with none of the grabbing nature that we found last year in Luang Prabang in Laos.

Talking of Luang Prabang, what a small world this is we live in. The day we arrived, at around 9am, we were about to check in when we heard voices from the breakfast area calling us and asking if we remembered them. Simply amazing, it was Betty and Graham from Nova Scotia in Canada who had the room next to ours in L P last March! Graham is 75 this year, has a beaming smile and a tendency to get into all sorts of scrapes (much to the annoyance of Betty). They both have an adventurous spirit and show absolutely no signs of slowing down. Here’s us talking so positively about them when they told us about how inspired they were with us when talking to their friends when they returned home to Canada! They were so impressed with us travelling for such long periods that they have now extended their trip this year to almost 3 months.

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A 3 day ticket to the Heritage Site, used over 7 days, cost 40USD and our first day was amazing, the sites provide one ‘wow’ moment after another. It was also physically tiring as a number of monuments require clambering across ruins and scrambling up near vertical steps.

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The pics just cannot capture the incredible atmosphere or the sounds of this place. We have our own tuk-tuk driver, Sambo, who for 12 USD/day takes us around the Temples and waits patiently while we play at being Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. He also supplies us with gallons of ice cold water, information on the various temples that we visit and he likes to drink draft beer with us. The day was finished off with sunset on the hilltop temple of Phnom Bakheng followed by dinner at the guesthouse. Who turned up to serve Neil a beer? Sambo!

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Tomorrow we take on the big one, Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious building, surrounded by a moat, (that makes our own English Castles look like they’re protected by a dripping tap), that is almost 200m wide and a mere 6.5km long…….wow! We’re also going to be up at 5am to watch the sunrise which is supposed to be an awesome experience….can’’t wait.