Cambodia

Arriving into Phnom Penh was easy, after paying $30USD for a visa on arrival, I walked out of the terminal to be greeted by Kate and Adair. Adair had flown in three hours earlier and Kate has been travelling around South East Asia for 5 months. 

Having my first experience on a 'Tuk Tuk' was a little sketchy at first, but I got used to it. Our driver told us to "watch bags" as theft is quite common in the capital, which Kate enforced also. 

We met some people in our hostel and decided to head for the "Killing a Fields of Choeung Ek." Poor Rodrigo had to sit on the floor there and back as we had 7.. There isn't really enforced road rules in Cambodia.

The Killing Fields is a collective name for numerous sites located around the country. The site on the outskirts of Phnom Penh is where over 17,000 were executed and buried under the communist regime of Khmer Rouge after the Cambodian Civil War. 

Below is a shrine dedicated to the children who lost their lives. People offer mostly threaded wrist bands or small change, thrown into the grave. 

We later went to Siem Reap, which is the "life support system for the temples of angkor." The temples of Angkor were magical, and I will do a post on those later on. 

As Adair was only here for a 2 week period, our final stop was Koh Rong Island after Shinanoukville and Otras beach. 

Otras beach was a small low key area, full of little beach bungalows and restaurants. The beach was decent, however we were a little bombarded with people asking if we wished for manicures, bracelets or for our legs to be done with string (which looked painful so I politely declined.) 

We took a 45 boat over to the island of Koh Rong which is a little paradise. Unfortunately higher up people wish to change this small inhabited island into a form of resort - with a golf course, casino, hospital, airport as well as a few other pointless buildings. 

It's sad, with this one strip long beach full of laughter from backpackers, local children running around and well looked after pups, this small loveable island could be ruined. 

The island is around the same size as Hong Kong, however nobody really goes for wanders through the forest due to the possible chance you'll meet an unwanted friend who goes by the name of King Cobra. 

We spent the days eating, swimming, reading, drinking and napping. It was a hard 5 days to get through. One night we wandered down to the dark area of the beaches and went swimming with glowing plankton. To be fair, it really just looked like air bubbles under the water, but still cool.  Kate and Adair got stung by jelly fish, but as we're not in Australia - it was fine. 

Our second last night, we went to a large beach party with a large group of Kate's friends. It was a great way to end a perfect 5 days. 

We said 'later days' to Adair who flew off to meet her second half in Bangkok while Kate and I headed off to Laos to meet another friend, Damon.