My first impression of Cambodia was the airport. It was a very small airport and we could walk from the plane to the immigration. At the airport I realized that I could have also bought my visa here. The people in Bangkok were telling something-different (maybe to get more business). But anyway I already have all my visas even if they might be cheaper at the border.

Immigration was pretty fast and as it is a small airport the arrival hall was pretty hassle free. Of course there were a lot of taxi drivers and desks selling accommodation but I could easily pass all of them. Outside the arrival hall I was looking for a motorbike, as they were supposed to be the cheapest. First a taxi driver told me that there are no motorbikes at the airport and that I have to take a taxi. But a few seconds later a guy offered me a ride on a motorbike. We had to walk past the airport where a lot of motorbikes were waiting for customers. First they only wanted to bring me to their preferred guesthouse but finally they brought me to the one I had chosen. The ride was pretty long and my luggage too heavy. I must really get rid of some stuff.

I arrived at the guesthouse at around 6 p.m. and for the rest of the day I only watched the movie Moulin Rouge, packed my small bag for my trip around Cambodia and bought a boat ticket for the next day to Siem Reap. I left most of my luggage (big backpack) in the guesthouse and it was so much nicer to travel only with little luggage.

The next day I had to get up at 5:30 for the bus to the boat. Unfortunately my guesthouse was the first on the list and so I had to get up earlier than the others and had to wait for 30 minutes at the other guesthouse.

The boat trip itself was very smooth but the cabin was way too tight for westerners and too cold. But when I heard of the awful bus ride the people had coming from Bangkok I was more than glad that I took the flight and the boat.

At the pier a lot of motorbike drivers waited for tourists and they were a real hassle until I decided for one of them. The trips to the guesthouses were for free and every driver was working for one or more hotels. My chosen driver promised me that the guesthouse will cost 3 USD but when we came there they wanted 4 USD and so my driver brought me to another one close by. I guess he also got his commission there. The guesthouse (green park) was really cool with very nice people and I met a big group of travelers there who just arrived from Thailand.

On the first day in Siem Reap I went to Angkor Wat which was really impressing. But unfortunately I didn?t see so much as I talked pretty long with some young monks. They told me that they became monks to choose their field and place of study. Otherwise it would not have been possible for them. In a view years they will leave the monasteries again and they are definitely interested in having a girlfriend later.

After Angkor Wat we went to a temple on a hill from where you could see a nice sunset. The sunset was cool but unfortunately the way up was very hard and I wished I had had my sneakers on instead of sandals. Due to this hike most people left the temple long before sunset. I left it in the last minutes of the sunset and when I finally arrived again at the bottom it was dark night. I was walking down very slowly and carefully and next to me all the kids were running down.

The next day I went with some other tourists to the temples and we saw first the jungle temple (Ta Prom), then Bayon (smiling faces) and finally again Angkor Wat.

Ta Prom was the only temple where they didn?t cut the jungle back. So you can see trees within walls, growing on top of the buildings and a lot of destroyed walls. It is really cool.

Bayon is one of the biggest temples and it has statues of smiling faces all over the place. Sometimes it is just one face but most of the times it is one face on each side. They look really good and I hope that some of my pictures will show it accurately.

The next day I went with a small boat to Battambang where I did a trip to another killing field and caves where the Khmer Rouge killed and tortured the people. Cambodia has a really sad history and most of the tourist attractions are somehow related to it. But despite this sad history people are smiling and seem to be happy. It is not a depressing place at all.

After the killing fields we went to a bamboo train station. It were merely little wagons with a bamboo plate on wheels and a motor attached to it. People use it merely for transporting goods to Battambang where the rail ends.

First we wanted to take a train for the worst part of the road and then a pickup. But as the train would take at least 6 hours and is dangerous because of robberies and the pickup only takes 2 hours for that part we decided for the pickup.

According to the guidebook the road was good, bad and ugly. The first part should be one of Cambodians highway to hell, the second part just a lot of potholes and the last part should be a nice road. But we were lucky. The worst part was just remade and it was pretty ok. Of course there are always a lot of potholes on Cambodian streets and you hardly find a concrete cover. But that?s part of the travel experience in Cambodia and for me it was a lot better than expected. It will definitely be worth for tall people as they are likely to bang their head at every pothole. In Asia it is really an advantage to be small (I?m still tall compared to Asians).

In Phnom Phen I bought a new big backpack and unfortunately it is as full as my older little one. I will never succeed to have little luggage.

After Phnom Phen I took the bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam. It was supposed to be 6 hours, but as expected it were 13 hours including stops and border waiting time.

The first part of the trip was really comfortable as it was a big bus (unusual for Cambodia) and I had two seats. Between the potholes the bus speeded up to about 80 km. But for the last 20 km to the border we had to change to a minibus which was not so comfortable but still ok. The reason for the minibus was the bad street but as I expected something really bad I was positively surprised again. For 20 km we needed about 1,5 hours, which is pretty good for those streets. At the border the driver refused to give us our luggage before lunch. So we had to have lunch (I was hungry anyway) and then we walked across the border.

After 1 check at the Cambodian border and 3 checks at the Vietnamese border we finally reached our big Vietnamese bus. One of the first things our guide told us was that due to traffic jams at this time of the day the journey in Vietnam might take up to 5 hours instead of 2. It took 4 hours.

To be continued in the Vietnam report.