Once upon a time two girls went travelling and for the first two months they barely drank any alcohol. They didn’t conform to the usual travellers’ habits. But then they reached Cambodia…

So what happened was…

We left Don Det in Laos and headed to Cambodia. On a bus full of mosquitos. It didn’t help when somebody sprayed that ridiculous floral insect repellent that attracts every mosquito in South East Asia and boy did they come flocking. They had a blood feast on that bus, it was a massacre and Lyvette managed to clap approximately 48 mosquitoes to their death (which is a record btw). It took 2 baby wipes to clean her hands though. Then we realised we had no dollars to cross the border, the cash machine didn’t work and we had no money whatsoever because we’d spent our last bit of Laos kip on sharing a Magnum. We didn’t even have enough money for the toilet so I had to go in the bushes in front of the Cambodian security hoping that I wouldn’t get shot. I didn’t get shot but I did end up with red ants in my knickers, which is NOT ideal. I had to thrust and shake my way back to the group whilst alternating between slapping my bum and my crotch. I looked like I was auditioning to become a member of Steps. I don’t care much for red ants. Or mosquitoes. Or floral insect repellent. Luckily Gemma managed to scrape enough dollars together to get us across the border and into sunny Cambodia. A new adventure was about to begin…

Siem Reap
As soon as we arrived we realised our livers would probably be taking a battering. Beer cost 50 cents. I don’t even like beer but who cares. Mojitos were $1. Excellent. We also realised that Cambodia seems to be obsessed with Hello Kitty. There’s Hello Kitty merchandise everywhere. And Cambodians seem to wear pyjamas all the time. I’m not sure if they are actually pyjamas but they certainly look like them – matching floral two piece pyjama look-a-like things. Pretty sure in the UK they would be pyjamas. Anyway…

Gemma was happy because our hostel did a Sunday roast. Lyvette was happy because she found Charlie’s bar that played the F1 and myself and Isla were happy because we found our first decent mojito in South East Asia. We were all happy.

We stayed in Siem Reap for 4 days because we loved it. We visited the temples and Angkor Wat at sunrise on a day when there was no sun to rise. Personally I think Angkor Wat is a bit over rated (don’t judge me) – even if it is supposed to be the “8^th” Wonder of the World and found the Thomb Raider temple, Angkor Thom much more interesting. We went to Charlie’s bar and met Charlie a Scottish Indian who speaks Welsh (excellent bar by the way) and we went to the amazing Phare circus which used acrobatics to show the effects of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

We also met the two happiest men on earth. I loved them both. Our temple Tuk Tuk driver, Vichard,  who drove us around in his Batmobile (our Tuk Tuk had Batman signs on it) smiled like no one I have ever met before, he was like the Cheshire cat but well more smiley-er. Then there was one of the men in the Phare circus, one of the acrobats. He danced around and shimmied his hips like no one I have ever seen before. His constant smile and enthusiasm excited me that much I actually wet myself. I pretended I’d spilt my beer.

We also got drunk. A few times. We even got dressed up to go out and party…we even wore make up. My make up consisted of DEET and deodorant. Gemma threw Pringles all over her face instead of in her mouth and Lyvette made friends with a tiny baby gecko that jumped on her, but because she thought it was a flying thing she started fly-fitting which resulted in her batting the tiny baby gecko down Gemmas top. Gemma then freaked as she realised something was scurrying around her bra and ripped her top off exposing her boobs whilst hopping around the balcony. The tiny baby gecko clearly enjoyed his first set of boobs even if he was unconscious from being viciously batted there. Then there was the morning when Lyvette fell out of bed (top bunk) onto a boy. She wasn’t wearing any knickers. Siem Reap was also the place where we said our final goodbyes to Isla as she headed to Singapore and home. It was so emotional that we all put red lipstick on in her honour and had 5 tequila shots to drown our sorrows.

Phnom Penh
So what we really need to stop doing is 7 hour coach journeys with a hangover. It really doesn’t feel too good. Apart from that I thoroughly enjoyed Phnom Penh. I’m not too sure about Lyvette as she had the poo’s.

Here we went to the Tuol Sleng museum and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Now, I’m not a historian but this needs a quick mention; basically the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979 and orchestrated genocide within the country destroying almost half of the population. They turned a high school into security prison S -21 (the Tuol Sleng museum) where they tortured people before sending them off to the Killing Fields where they were brutally murdered.  This didn’t happen too long ago and is the reason you don’t see many old people in Cambodia. What the people of Cambodia have been through is unthinkable and the Phare circus in Siem Reap really puts the Cambodian spirit and nature into perspective and shows how they as a nation overcame such a catastrophe. Obviously even after spending 3 hours at the museum and an hour at the Killing Fields we still had to come back and Google everything (this seems to be a common theme of our travels…apparently we know nothing)

Other than that I witnessed a fish being slapped to death and someone smoking a cigarette through his nose. I was so engrossed in the nose-smoking that I fell down a drain.

Sihanoukville
The weather was good for the first day so we hired a scooter and went beach hopping. Obviously our scooter didn’t work properly and kept cutting out so random people (wearing Hello Kitty pyjamas) had to come and kick start it for us. Then we went for a ‘quiet’ night out at the beach bars which cost us $4 and resulted in us waking up with a pile of sand in our beds and body paint everywhere.

I also managed to lose my locker key so the poor hostel worker had to sit and try all 409 spare keys in my lock. And then someone found my key in the toilet. I realised that I was worse at pool than I thought when I spent more time poking myself in the eye with my cue than potting (or even hitting) any balls. Naturally we decided we simply had to go out again the next night which ended with Gemma hula hooping off the stage shortly after $10 had just fallen from her woo area (we’re still not quite sure what happened there) and me standing chatting to some guys when one of them batted a fly off his arm and into my mouth. I nearly died as it spasmed its way down my oesophagus and I could only try and wretch it back up. Then someone smacked me on the back and the fly came back up and carried on its merry way, not looking quite as happy and the tiny baby gecko that had got a ferret around Gemmas bra. This left me feeling violated and wondering what the hell had just happened. It would seem that animals being batted at our body parts became a regular occurrence in Cambodia. We then went home with me keeping my mouth shut in case I encountered any kamikaze flies and Gemma still wondering where the devil her $10 note had fell from. That night we all put some additional sand in our beds. We couldn’t wait to buy a bucket and spade and play in our new beach-beds.

Koh Rong
This is an island about 45mins boat ride from Sihanoukville so we decided to go on ‘holiday’ there for a night or two. I have never been somewhere that has so many Hello Kitty bed sheets. I think every bungalow was kitted out with Hello Kitty stash, not that I’m complaining – it went well with my pink princess net. This was also the place where within an hour of being there a baked bean had fallen from the sky, a child ran towards me wielding a steak knife and I saw a man snorkelling with his dog.

Kampot
This started with humiliation when I went and got into somebody else’s bed. And he was in it. “Excuse me, can I help you?”…ermmmm…  “Is this my bed?” It wasn’t, as I realised when I started fiddling with the lock which wasn’t mine. I wasn’t even in the right room. Or on the right floor #awkward.

We also did the worst tour in the history of tours, up a mountain, on a day when it was cold, misty and wet. We couldn’t see a thing. The only thing that made it worthwhile was listening to Gemma raving in the bus with her earphones in and rapping to Eminem and watching Lyvette, along with the rest of the bus sleep. Now this journey was tedious and everyone was a bit low because we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces let alone any beautiful views, so I think this caused everybody to feel weary and thus nap on the bus ride back. Now Lyvette has taken to falling asleep at every opportunity on moving vehicles (I think she caught this off me) but she doesn’t just shut her eyes and snooze like everyone else, she slumps and every bone in her body seems to disappear as she sags and dribbles on whoever is next to her. It’s like she shuts her eyes and somehow her spine is surgically removed. This isn’t ideal for her, but was hilarious for myself and Gemma. Especially when the roads in SE Asia are bumpy and twisty, causing her to be thrown about in her sleep. We watched in anticipation as her body slowly slumped to the right and moved closer and closer to the woman next to her, until her head rested on the woman’s shoulder and she dribbled down her arm. The woman didn’t seem to care as she was too busy watching her husband sat in front of her head butting the window and waking himself up on every corner. It was so comical that DJ Gem stopped rapping in the corner and we both stifled giggles as Lyvette slowly started to cuddle the woman next to her. It was the highlight of the tour.

The next day we went on a booze cruise, hoping the weather would be a bit better (it was still a bit grim). I developed a knot in my left shoulder that was niggling me so I decided that jumping off a tower in the middle of the river would be a great way to fix this. Especially when I landed on my ass and acquired a bruise the size of a small country down the back of my leg. Because my shoulder hurt I then decided to throw myself off another building a few times and then try and get Lyvette and then Gemma to walk on my back to crack it. It didn’t crack enough for my liking so the rest of the hotel formed an alcohol fuelled queue to manipulate said knot from my back. After much sadistic bouncing and jumping on my traps and lats I felt fresh as a drunken daisy and me and my bruise were ready for the next round of jumping. Lyvette had a fly-fit because she found a frog in her knickers before she swapped clothes with a guy in our dorm (he now has a nice pink crop top) and  Gemma continued with her game of dolphin interpretation. The next day I woke up with orange fingers, hugging a tampon with my face on a hairbrush. Lyvette’s big bag of Cheetos was empty. My orange fingers and the remnants of cheesy crumbs surrounding my bed indicated that I was the culprit. I would have cleaned them up except that I discovered that my left shoulder was paralysed from all the jumping on it and I groaned in agony as I turned over.

The day after a drinking session can only mean one thing – a 7hour coach journey (we really have to stop this). This was the end of our time in Cambodia and we were off to Vietnam. We finally had to say our emotional goodbyes to Gemma after travelling with her for near on 4 weeks, but we will be meeting up with her again in South Thailand at the end of the month. I tried to hug her (secretly hoping some $10 notes would fall from her body parts as I did so), washed my cheesy fingers and attempted to drag my bag down to the lobby with one arm and prepared myself for Lyvette’s dribble on our long bus journey to the next country.

We had a blast in Cambodia, not just because we don’t remember half of it (I’m kidding, obvs) but because we saw some amazing things and got an insight into the country and its history. The people here are amazing. The only negatives seemed to be that I ate a fly and appear to have broken my left shoulder blade, Lyvette has lost the ability to sit upright on a bus and we didn’t purchase any Hello Kitty merchandise or Cambodian style pyjamas-that-may-not-actually-be-pyjamas.

“Despite it headline attractions Cambodia’s greatest treasure is its people. The Khmers have been to hell and back, but thanks to an unbreakable spirit and infectious optimism they have prevailed with their smiles and spirits largely intact.” – The Lonely Planet