Siem Reap

6th- 8th of October

Mandalay Inn was the name of our roof top gym guesthouse and the staff couldn't have been welcoming, accommodating and friendly. A vast contrast from previous experience with the locals! Siem Reap instantly felt different from Thailand, a lot less commercialised and quite clearly a lot poorer, it was however far less cramped and very dusty. We haden't seen much sun so far but things were looking good as the sun was out on the first day and the sky blue. We cruised the local market and were welcomed by even more pushy and desperate natured people than Thailand.

After a morning of exploring and being hassled by every man woman and dog trying to sell something there was clearly only one destination, the roof top gym! We had found a gym in Thailand on Koh San road. Sadly it was expensive and underwhelming. This gym however was free! it may have been lacking in quality and some equipment had so much rust i was a little scared to pick it up, it did make up for any shortcomings with character plus we had a roof top view of siem reap as a backdrop. (the entire time we were at this guesthouse and even after being told it was through the building next door and passed over, i was still completely baffled as to how they managed to haul all of the stuff up to the roof 5 floors high, which had a tiled cover, hats off to them though great workout dedication shown there!) We had a great workout and my mood was sky high once again.

We explored the rest of the afternoon and used the good weather as a chance to practice more with our cameras, we are still very much noobs when it comes to SLR's. We are getting better, generally always use manual which is a good sign. Catastrophe struck later that evening though as we attempted to upload pictures through our usb card reader. It failed using nikkis card, it failed using mine and also somehow managed to wipe everything. Luckily i only lost that days pictures and a few videos as everything else had been backed up, but i didn't want to hear that at the time, i was gutted, i had lost some great pictures around the town and some workout pictures i was really proud of.

We sampled some street food and were encouraged by the number of westerners indulging in street vendors spilling out in to the street surrounded by cheap plastic chairs and tables. We were hardly going to complain when most meals cost 60p. Needless to say we ate well. I will put a side note here that our travels so far had not resulted in meeting and be-befriending lots of fellow travelers. Very strange and a stark constant from my previous travelling experiences (luckily nikki makes for quite good company). So far i put it down to being off season and the fact that everyone in bangkok around Koh San road looked stoned or drugged up. During our first sit down for Siem Reap's finest street food we happened to sit at a table with an solo young english girl. To our dismay after Nikkis very friendly approach and hello all she could offer us was a quiet 'Hi' before looking more interested in a book and being alone. FAIL

A big religious festival postponed our intended Angkor Wat visit date, neither of us are big fans of major tourist spots full of people at the best of times. It was a great choice as we avoided some poor weather during that day and rain in the evening. Some more exploring of Siem Reap and another workout done we went to bed early for our 4am wake up call to make sunrise.