Cambodian street food – fried insects… yummy!!

Here we are in Siem Reap, we’ve come here as some friends have offered us a place to leave the bike while we fly to the Phillipines – Thanks to Sue and Peter!!

After the last update we took a couple of days to get to Bangkok, spending the night in what ended up being a dodgy hotel upstairs from a prostitute pick up bar, fortunately for me, it was Sal who found this one, so no blame on me for a change.

The lovehearts painted on the walls were a nice touch though.

From there we headed to the downtown area in Bangkok where we found a nicer place with a secure park outside for Betsy, and spent the next few days looking for new tyres, some other spares, a gps repair centre… and a hairdresser.

The street food in Bangkok is always a highlight, and we spent a few nights cruising the streets in a tuk tuk, hanging out in a blues bar, and just soaking up the sights and sounds of that enormous gritty city.

We rode to the border with Cambodia in a day and exited Thailand, avoiding the unexpected border scam of trying to convince you to buy a visa for Cambodia at a non official office.

We arrived on the other side an hour after the Cambodian Customs office had closed for the night, and were told to come back at 8 to get our paperwork done for the bike.  We couldn’t work out whether they meant 8pm or 8am the next day, but as we were sitting across the road eating dinner anyway, I went back in at 8:30 just in case there was someone there.

Of course the office was empty, but as I was walking out laughing (at the idea of anyone coming back in at 8pm!), a car pulled up with two drunken customs officers inside.  They weren’t there to work, only to pick up a car after a ‘party’ of some sort, but one of them smiled and invited me into the office, turned on the lights and the computer again and got the temporary import done for me.  I cant think of too many places in the world where that could happen.

We spent the rest of the night drinking $2 Margaritas before a long hungover ride into Siem Reap the next day.

I’d forgotten just how friendly and smiley the Cambodian people are, they’re accustomed to seeing foreign people so they dont stare, but will still sneak a little look at us sometimes, especially when we’re on the bike.  Then it just takes  a little nod to say hello and they light up with big beautiful smiles.

We’re off to the Phillipines tonight so the next update will be from there 🙂