Cambodia

I thought this was cooking oil for sale - until I saw a moped pull up and fill her tank with it.

"tuk tuk lady?" - a call you may start to hear in your sleep it is called so often

Cambodian landscape - pretty flat, and until recently covered with land mines

There are still land mines over other parts of Cambodia, but this area has been cleared for rice growing

With a little spare time on my hands, and a visa that is about to expire, I head over to the border and to Cambodia for a short break - as you do! Having not been on a journey for more than one hour over the last month the journey to Siam Reap, Cambodia seemed rather long and arduous. Skytrain north of Bangkok to the bus station, then a motorbike taxi to the actual bus station when I got lost walking through the park and had no idea where I was heading :-) four and a half hour bus journey to the border, where I had to change seats as the air conditioning was leaking on me - I think it was only water - a bus to the border proper, out through Thai immigration, in through Cambodia immigration and a further four hours to Siam Reap. Add in the torrential rain that started two hours into the journey, didn't let up until about ten minutes from Siam Reap and caused localised flooding at the border - read, Philippa was splashing through ankle deep puddles to walk through the borders, trying to avoid all the children trying to sell a walk under an umbrella and hoping that she was only walking in water - and I was pretty darn knackered by the time I arrived at my hotel. Luckily it was a very nice, clean hotel and a lovely air conditioned ensuite room - all for $6. I was also feeling quite smug as the only other people on the bus from the border to Siam Reap were fellow foreigners and they had paid between $30-$50 for the same journey as a tour which had cost me only $16 - plus an extra $1 for the motorbike ride out of the park in Bangkok!