It’s been a long time coming, but better late than never! The final leg of our travels finished eight months ago now - here’s the summary I wrote actually not that long after we got back!

We arrived in Phnom Penh late afternoon and got a tuk tuk to the area east of Boeng Kak Lake. It continently started pouring with rain just as we got there, so we had a quick look round to find somewhere to stay. We arrived at a place that was recommended in the guidebook. Although it was a bit of a dump, we ended up staying as it was only $4 a night!

Unfortunately, the rain continued all day, so we ended up spending all afternoon and evening in a little cafe near to our guesthouse, reading and generally relaxing.

The following day the weather was much better, so we got a tuk tuk to take us to the Killing Fields - one of many sites in Cambodia where people were murdered and buried. It was pretty depressing really, its difficult to fathom the scale of the genocide that happened under the Khmer Rouge regime. There’s a big stupa filled with 17 levels of hundreds of skulls and bones, and there’s even a pile of clothes in there that were recovered from the many mass graves on the site. We watched a short documentary in the museum there, and then got the tuk tuk back into the city.

We visited the Russian Market, where we browsed all the various souvenirs and bought a painting. We also tried some random Khmer food, we’re still not sure what it was!

From there we walked to the S-21 prison. This too, was extremely depressing. The prison was previously a school, but was converted in the Khmer Rouge era. Some of the classrooms have been divided into tiny cells made of brick and wood, and others have beds in the centre, and were clearly used to torture people. Apart from that, there were rooms after rooms of pictures of the victims who were imprisoned, tortured and subsequently killed by the regime. Comrade Duch, who was the chief of the prison, has recently been convicted of war crimes as he meticulously kept a record of everyone who passed through the prison, hence the photographs. There are signs up everywhere there telling you that laughing is not allowed, although I can’t imagine there’s many people who laugh when they’re in there!

After this we decided to wander over to the Independence monument, stopping en route to get an ice cream. Unfortunately it was beginning to rain, and it was starting to get dark, so we decided to head back in a tuk tuk.

The following day we were up bright and early to get the boat to Siem Reap. We had been torn as to whether to get the boat or the bus, as the boat was 10 times the price of the bus (at $35 versus $3.50!) but we opted for the boat as the views were meant to be nice. After being picked up on motorbikes with all of our bags, we got on the boat but were slightly disappointed to find that there was no outside deck for us to enjoy the views, but as we got going people just ended up sitting on the roof! It was really nice to see the little wooden houses on the banks of the Tonle Sap river, and there were lots of little fishing boats out too. In the wet season, the Tonle Sap river takes up 7% of Cambodia’s land mass apparently, and entering the larger part of the river was like heading out to sea, you couldn’t see any land on the horizon!

Map of Angkor

After travelling over the larger part of the lake for a good couple of hours (the whole boat journey took about 6 hours) we passed through a floating village, with lots of houseboats and a floating church and school, we met a tuk tuk driver who had been told we were arriving by the people we booked the boat with. He took us to a guesthouse which was very nice, and we arranged for him to take us out to the Angkor temples for sunset that evening.

If you visit the temples at 5pm, you can buy your pass for the following days and get a sunset that evening for free. So we bought our 3 day passes and went to enjoy the sunset on top of Phnom Bakheng. Our guidebook described it as being a “circus”, and it wasn’t far wrong - there are so many people up there for it!

The next day we wanted to go and see all the major sites around Angkor. We first went to Ta Prohm, a temple famous for having been left more engulfed by the jungle. Unfortunately just this year they’ve decided to take a more aggressive approach to restoration and have removed most of the plants within the complex and some of the impressive trees too. Still, it is a very interesting place, with some of the most famous postcard photos from the area with large tree roots engulfing parts of the temple.

Bex in Ta Prohm

On the way to the Royal city of Angkor Thom we stopped at a smaller temple, Ta Keo, to have a quick climb up it. In Angkor Thom we decided to go and see the most famous temple, the Bayon. It’s well known for having giant faces on the many towers that cover the top level - this was probably our favourite temple we saw.

Next we went to see Angkor Wat. It was not as impressive as we’d expected - partly because expectations are so high as its so famous, and also because it’s got scaffolding on the main central sanctuary. We were also pretty tired of looking round by now - it was a really hot day. We spent a while looking at the bas relief, which are very intricate and impressive, but the most famous bit was covered up for restoration! We were also disappointed to find out that we couldn’t go up to the top, but that turned out to just be because of the time we were there. The temple was really great to see and is impressively large, but we did prefer the Bayon.

Faces on the Bayon

The next day we set off at 4.45am to go and watch the sunrise. Our tuk tuk driver took us to Banteay Kdei, and we sat opposite by Srah Srang, a large reservoir which reflected the rising sun beautifully. We looked around the temple once the sun had risen - it is an impressively complex labyrinth of tiny rooms. We then set off for Banteay Srei, a relatively small temple located a bit of a way from the rest of the temples. It’s known for having some very intricate carvings which are really well preserved because they’re made in sandstone and it was only relatively recently discovered.

Next we visited Preah Khan which was another impressively big temple which, like Ta Prohm, is still a bit full of plants and trees. We spent a while looking around here before going back into Angkor Thom to walk along the Terrace of the Elephants before heading home - getting up so early took its toll!

On our final day at Angkor we decided to take a ride in a tethered balloon which is located west of Angkor Wat. The balloon goes up far enough to give stunning views of the surrounding temples and countryside - unfortunately, first thing in the morning the sun is right behind Angkor Wat so it was almost impossible to take photos of it!

We used the rest of the day to go back to have another look at some temples we’d already seen, and finish looking in the Royal Enclosure at Angkor Thom. We started at the south end, at the Baphuon, then the Phimeanakas, a temple mountain you could climb up, affording views of the surrounding area.

After looking around the rest of the enclosure we went back to the Bayon since we’d enjoyed seeing it so much the first time. We then went back to Angkor Wat, since we hadn’t been able to go to the top last time we wanted to see the principal sanctuary and the view from there. We hadn’t really appreciated it the first time we saw it because it was so hot and we were exhausted - we were much more impressed the second time!

Angkor Wat

The next day we left Cambodia on a bus back to Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok on the Saturday evening, spent the Sunday looking around the enormous weekend market. On the Tuesday we flew from Bangkok to Dubai.

We arrived in Dubai in the early afternoon, and after taking an age to get through customs (nearly everyone else on the flight just went for a connection) we got on their shiny new metro to the city centre. This was one of the few places we’d booked a hotel, because we didn’t want to end up paying loads if we couldn’t find somewhere when we got there!

We got off at the nearest metro station and experienced the blistering heat for the first time! Rather than wander around in it for ages with our bags, we took a taxi which dropped us at our hotel. The room was really nice - far more pricey than everything recently, but probably still cheaper than hostels in Oz and New Zealand! By the time we’d settled in most of the day had gone, so we decided to stay in that evening.

The following day, after taking advantage of room service for breakfast and lunch, we took the metro to the Dubai Mall, and Burj Khalifa, the largest mall in the world and the world’s tallest building. Needless to say we spent a while looking around - including popping into Waitrose - and took some photos of the Burj Khalifa. We didn’t go up it - tickets were pretty expensive and visibility looked pretty bad on the day we were there.

When we’d had enough of the designer shops we couldn’t afford, we headed back to the hotel. We went for an evening swim in the rooftop swimming pool which had a fairly good view!

The following day we had booked ourselves onto a desert safari trip. We got picked up in the early afternoon and driven out of the city, eventually going off road straight over the desert! It was really good fun, and amazing to see how much you can throw a 4x4 around on very soft sand! Eventually we arrived at a touristy ‘Bedouin’ village, where we watched some cheesy shows, tried some foods and had a tasty buffet. When it was all finished we were taken back to the hotel, arriving fairly late in the evening.

The next day, 17th September, was our final day of our trip. We pack our bags for the final time, checked out and took the metro back to the airport. The flight was, as usual, uneventful, but we did get to go on an A380! The first class bit upstairs even had a water feature at the top of the stairs! We got back to Heathrow that evening, with the Heathrow baggage handlers managing to bend the back frame in my bag, after surviving six months of travelling!

New we just need to work out how to get away for another six months!

Update: Apparently I never quite finished writing this!