It was somewhat out of necessity that we were staying in Sihanoukville for one day. We wanted to get to Koh Phangan, a Thai island on the west side of the Gulf of Thailand. However, flights were costly, and there were no boats, meaning that buses were our only choice. There was no direct way through, so we had to stop in Bangkok as well. To get to Bangkok, we could take a bus at 8.15am, or a night bus which went all the way back up to Phnom Penh to the horrible border crossing at Poipet, a journey of about 17 hours. There was no ferry early enough to get us to Sihanoukville before 8.15am, and we didn't want to do the night bus, so we were required to spend an evening in Sihanoukville.

The ferry took a while to reach Sihanoukville, as it stopped in two other places along the way . It ended up taking nearly two hours to get back to the town. We'd pre-booked a hotel using Booking.com and it was near the dock, a couple of blocks up. We were greeted to Sihanoukville by shouts of "tuk-tuk!" from the numerous drivers at the dock. We ignored them and kept walking, reaching our hotel, to be told that it was full. The owner said her internet was bad and she couldn’t let Booking.com know that her hotel was full. Ken hunted out another hotel and settled on the one next door. It was more expensive but did the job. Called Zana Beach Guest House, we had a room with air conditioning, warm shower, clean bedding, and best of all – there was no infestation of ants. We were worried that ants had gotten into the rest of our belongings, as well as Jayna’s boots, so we unpacked and checked everything. It seemed fine.

We headed out for some lunch to a vegetarian restaurant close by. Run by a Russian couple, it served good food and it was fairly reasonably priced . Our burritos turned out to be the closest thing to beans and cheese on toast we’d found! We headed back to our hotel to do some planning and bus booking for another long day of travel the following day.

Several hours of organising later, we went out for a meal to Monkey Republic and enjoyed the atmosphere. We headed back to our hotel to watch the last ever x-files (to date), a bumper hour and a half of x-files story telling. We learnt that, according to the x-files, if you want to know "the truth", you should work for the military, not the FBI. With that life lesson in place, we packed and went to bed, ready for another long day of travel the following day.

Next stop – back to Bangkok!

Cambodia was a lovely yet varied country. Poor, with a tragic recent history, yet full of smiling people who were only too happy to see us, and containing Angkor Wat, one of the most well known tourist destinations in the world . Sometimes, the people seemed artificially happy - particularly around Siem Reap, we found that people saw walking dollar signs rather than us as people, but away from Angkor Wat the people seemed more genuine.

The country was very hot and humid, and the limited beaches we saw were pretty. The diving was not good. Despite the lovely warm water, the poor visibility hid the treasures that we knew were lurking somewhere in the blue.

The buses took way too long to get everywhere. We really liked our brief time in Kratie, which was a town with a great feel to it. It was not a costly country, but also it wasn’t pennies cheap. We certainly noticed the difference in prices between the typically touristy areas, and the areas which didn’t see many tourists. The food was okay in quality, but did not blow us away. Overall, it was nice. We were glad to have gone, and felt we did the country well.