Welcome to Cambodia

Wednesday 25th May:
7am - Get up, get showered, buy breakfast, check out of guesthouse.
8am - Get picked up by Mr Phou, the local we booked our tickets to Siem Reap (from Si Phan Don) with. He takes us down to a tiny little boat, tells us that it might sink with any more than three people. Four of us get in and set off. We come close to capsizing (and losing everything we have with us) several times. Arrive on the mainland and sit around waiting.
11am - Set off to the Laos - Cambodia border by bus.
12pm - Arrive at border. Pay $2 bribe to have our passports stamped. Cross the border - this involves walking across a 20m stretch of road. Arrive at Cambodia, pay $1 for 'mandatory health check'. Go to Visa office, the cost is $23, despite being $20 according to Cambodia government website. Our protests fall on deaf ears - the immigration officer tells us something along the lines of 'look mate, you don't like it then you can f*ck off back to Laos, alright?' - I'm helping him out with translation here, he got the message across with gestures and mannerisms - top guy. Get our passports stamped, sit around for a while not having a clue where we go or which bus we get on.
1pm - We hop on what we think is our bus - this largely involves following the crowd. My seat is broken - there is no lock on the recliner, so my seat swings back and forth the whole way, especially on the bumpy roads.
3pm - We stop for lunch. Pay over the odds for some chicken curry with rice - keep finding bones everywhere. Realise i'm eating chicken neck - stick to the rice after that.
8pm - Finally stop where we change bus for Siem Reap. Get dropped at another crappy overpriced restaurant (they have deals sorted out with the bus companies - nowhere else we can eat anything), eat some fried rice.
9pm - Get on our bus for Siem Reap - it smells, really badly.
12.30am - Arrive at Siem Reap, fenced and locked in. We find our tuk-tuk driver (pretty much the one good thing to happen that day - our guesthouse arranged it for us), he's the one holding the ''Den'' sign, and wait for the gate to be unlocked so we can leave.
1am - Arrive at guesthouse, sleep.

It was a grim, but necessary, day. Our first impressions of Cambodia are really great. The people here are all amazing  our guesthouse is great (and cheap - 2.40 a night each). Angkor Wat is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen - but more on that later. Here we pay in dollars, which is basically 4000 riel. Bit strange but it's much less confusing than Laos!

Overall we were a bit let down by Laos. The country was beautiful, and Luang Prabang was definitely great. That said we'd been told by so many people (and the lonely planet guide etc.) that Laos people are the nicest you will meet in South-east Asia - they're not. Our experience was that they were (I generalise) rude and completely unwelcoming. I'm not sure if things have changed over the last few years, or maybe we got unlucky - but everyone we've spoke to on our trip has said the same. It's hard to properly explain since it is more of an overall vibe than particular instances - but for example here even though people try to overcharge you , it's always with a cheeky pleasant tone. The locals are friendly and all happy to negotiate and engage with you, our experience of Laos was completely different. Still had a great time, and saw lots of cool stuff - but it wasn't quite what we'd been built up to expect.

Anyone who likes The Cinematic Orchestra should check this out. A band called Submotion Orchestra, an up and coming group from Leeds. Beautiful electronic/jazz music.