From Siem Reap to Bangkok

Yesterday was our last day in Cambodia. We enjoyed a relaxing day, around the hotel pool in the morning, then we went out to a Cambodia BBQ restaurant for lunch. The BBQ was great - we got to cook our food (meats, squid & prawns) over a gas burner (like a camping stove), plus vegetables and noodles in hot soupy broth around the edges. It was great fun and tasty too - we wished we'd discovered this before our last day in Cambodia! We then visited the day market and bought a few things to take on to New Zealand with us (we know everything will be more expensive there). Later we went for another swim, then spent much of the evening sorting our stuff and re-packing ready to move on. We had another visit from the hotel staff again, this time bringing us some mini farewell cakes - the joys of splashing out on a more upmarket hotel!

Today we spent the whole day travelling to Bangkok by bus. The journey took us about 9 hours, including 2 hours of border formalities (mainly involving queues). The bus was pretty comfortable and the journey wasn't actually as bad as 9 hours on a bus with a 4-year-old might sound (helped by the fact that she had a 2-hour nap along the way - although she's now still awake and it's after 9pm!). We arrived safely in Bangkok and we're staying in Asia Hotel - a place that Laura stayed in when she was in Bangkok 17 years ago... The first thing we noticed in Bangkok is the number of cars - far more than we've seen in either Vietnam or Cambodia, where motorbikes were definitely more the norm, and more than either of us remember seeing when we've visited Bangkok before 15+ years ago.Read more