Angkor Wat and the infamous Water Buffalo on Koh Rong

After two random girls were let in our room at 1am by the Thai receptionist, our alarm sounded at 4am so we then had to get ready in the dark not to wake the girls sharing the bunk underneath mine (when we returned at 11am they were gone and we still have no idea who they were). We set off to the Temples of Angkor. We sat eagerly awaiting the sunrise at 6am and although it was already fairly light, a few glimpses of orange managed to peak through the clouds, it was a shame the weather wasn't great but the view was still pretty spectacular. We spent the morning exploring Angkor Wat and the other temples including Ta Phrom, where Tomb Raider was filmed, never felt better walking around pretending to be Lara Croft. Seeing the temples was great, but I cant help but think the tourist elements completely ruin it. One minute you're walking around a deserted temple, the next you bump in to someone trying to sell you a guidebook or bracelet for "only one dollar lady" which tainted the whole experience. Still, the temples were worth a visit:

On our return in the Tuk Tuk, I dropped my camera out of the side and watched it roll and bounce down the road as we were driving off. I had to run back and get it and amazingly, considering it is already held together by sellotape, it survived!! I swear it is indestructible.

The next day we decided to go to Chong Khneas floating village on the Tonle Sap lake. Somehow, we managed to get ourselves in between some major beef between our Tuk Tuk driver and our 'tour guide' on the boat. The tour guide was all chatty and friendly once we got on the boat, took some photos of us and was chatting away until suddenly he switched and started saying we didn't like him and asking us what the Tuk Tuk driver had said about him. We got a long sob story from him about how they used to be friends but now he tells all the tourists that he is a bad person before they get on his boat. All feeling awkward, we tried to ignore him and take photos of the floating houses. We got dropped at a crocodile farm with our tour guide now ignoring us and our boat had driven off!! Wondering if we were ever going to get off this floating farm we stood staring at the crocodiles contemplating if the water was infested and if we could swim back...
After our boat finally came back they drove in to the middle of nowhere on the lake and turned the engine off, whilst we contemplated the swim again, our guide sat on the front of the boat looking as if he was going to cry. He had more of a moan about his old friend and made us swear on the sun that he hadn't slagged him off. Of course we did it but this bazaar bitch fest was like watching an episode of Hollyoaks. After this he perked up a little, we visited a floating school, and Lisa even drove the boat. Even though this was so good to see, and take in the strange way people live (the children row themselves to school), I have never been so glad to get off a boat and away from the most weird, insecure tour guide I've ever met.

Siem Reap came with making our first friend!! Woohoo. I was beginning to think I was just stuck with these two mugs for the whole trip. Rory is our 21 year old bartender who guessed that Leanne was 18, and me and Lisa 20. With this compliment (?) we sat drinking at our hostel bar and then made him come out on Pub Street with us. After a few more buckets and Leanne falling off a table (she is still moaning about her bruised elbows now) we decided to call it a night.

(SO cute just for you Laura Meares)

The next night, we took a night bus down to Sihanoukville. I settled down on our flat beds ready for what I thought would be a smooth ride when a Canadian introduced himself as my 'roommate' and apologised for being 'on the large side'. Now, this would have been too bad if the beds weren't the size of a single bed. He proceeded to talk to me about the Cambodian economy and other such boring topics until finally the bus light went off and I could try and sleep. I layed on my side for the entire 12 hour trip with no room to breathe and only one stop for the toilet. The 'toilets' were several holes in the ground crawling with cockroaches. We all braved them with a high level of screaming and running outside and got back on the bus. Once we finally got to the pier, we were met with the worst storm we have seen yet, thunder and lightning and the worst rain. Luckily, the let us wait until it calmed down before we set off and believe me, even the night bus was worth it. 

When you're staying in this: 

And your view of the beach looks like this:

How can you complain? Sure, we may be sharing it with a fair few gecko's, a cockroach and a couple of rats, but it actually doesn't seem to matter.

The first person we met was the Koh Rong Ferry manager who gave us some island rules. He banged on about the amount of water buffalo there were and how we were not to go near them, we had to move out of their way, we weren't allowed to ride them and we definitely weren't allowed to try and take pictures with them. We set off to find somewhere to sleep (and take a selfie while sat on a water buffalo) but annoyingly, I am still yet to see one of these mysterious creatures. What I have seen though, is a huge amount of dogs, they are everywhere!! Not being a dog lover, this isn't ideal but the island are actually taking good care of them, making sure they are spayed, neutered and healthy and I somehow though a lot of them were quite cute. 

The island itself has intermittent electricity and we have cheered every time our fan has finally come back on, so as you can guess, the heat here is hard to deal with but our tans are slowly coming on.

We set off on the one hour trek across the jungle in search of 'the best beach you will ever see' and wondered how hard it could be? A small island couldn't house that hard of a trek could it? The advice we were given this time: (genuinely) watch out for the venomous snakes. And if you get bitten, don't panic (yeah right), just get back to the pier and we will speed boat you to the mainland for anti-venom.. 

A little worry set in but we don'd our walking boots for the first time and set off on what was described by Leanne as 'ultimate rock climbing'. Myself and Lisa looked at each other and thought it wasn't that bad... Until we got to the next stage. Climbing down jagged rocks with some frayed string and a few true roots to hold on to was not what we were expecting. We finally made it to Long Beach, and what a disappointment!! The novelty of having the beach pretty much to ourselves was great, but the sand was rough and a lot of rubbish lined the shore... After the trek we were all sweating so much - all fear of the sea disappeared and I got straight in. After a while on Long Beach we decided to brave the trek back to our side of the island, realising that what we had climbed down, we would now need to climb back up (now this was definitely ultimate rock climbing).

It turns out that snakes were the least of our animal worries as we approached our bags on the sand... The biggest dragon fly you will ever see had taken a liking to our stuff and was circling it like it had marked its territory. 3 screaming girls running to get one item of clothing at a time trying to dodge the dragon fly was the funniest (and most ridiculous) thing ever. I have never been so happy to see our bungalow when we got back, coming back on the trek is honestly the hardest physical thing I think I've ever done, and I don't think my heart has ever beaten so fast, but WE DID IT!!

We also rented a kayak and managed to make it to another pretty much empty beach without falling in.We snorkeled but saw nothing... My fear of the sea is also fully back after standing on something that wiggled under my foot as I tried to fix my snorkel, lets keep working on that one shall we...

We have spent an amazing few days on Koh Rong and i'm quite sad to be leaving our little bungalow but also excited to get to our final stop in Cambodia; Phnom Penh (and a room with air conditioning).