Top Pleasant Surprises travelling in Cambodia in 2003:

-Now is the time to visit, as tourism is on the verge of arriving in full force

-You can travel from the Thai border to Siem Reap by bus in comfort(relative to India and Nepal) in less than the legendary 24h, now it's less than 12h

-The Khmers are genuinely friendly people, and with the exception of the moto drivers in Siem Reap, are not out to smoothly con you out of your cash at every turn

-The accomodations are incredible value at every stop - clean, comfortable, and cheap

-The food is quite good if you seek it out, Khmers make an exceptional Happy Herb Pizza...but don't go for the Extra Happy...it's just uh, too 'happy' :)

-Even after experiencing the sites of Egypt and the Middle East, the temples of Angkor deserve their place among the best in the world!

-From the days of Angkor to present day, every stitch of Cambodian history seems enthralling - who knew!

-The capital city is spelled P-H-N-O-M P-E-N-H...gets them every time at the spelling bee finals!

-If you make a relatively short detour on the way back to Bangkok from Phnom Penh, you can experience a great beach destination...just don't tell anyone (look at Thailand!)

Our first impression of Cambodia after a strange and surprising relief to be heading back into the familiarity of the 3rd world (from the luxuries of Thailand), were that there was something very different about the Khmers. They seemed to exude a charm of genuinity that is lacking in many of the people you often meet in well-travelled countries. They seemed so truly happy to welcome us and to tell us their stories - and every story, without exception, is a bonafide tragedy. It's so striking to see these people moving on with a smile on their face despite their incomprehensible decimation of the 70's.

After accepting the travellers' school of thought on overland travel through Cambodia, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the recent investment in tourist infrastructure has started to pay off big-time. Most of the roads on the main travel routes were well-graded, and a couple of the main ones were even paved!

Admittedly, ever since our total 'ruin fatigue' in the Middle East, we weren't sure what to expect from the temples of Angkor. However, our enthusiasm quickly bubbled back on the moto drive into this incredible park. The temples are made more astonishing by the jungle back-drop (as seen in Tomb Raider, we're afraid to say). Having said that, we still didn't spend the full 3 days in the park that we paid for, but managed to thoroughly enjoy the high-points in two.

Unfortunately, you can't really marvel at the greatness of the ancient history here without being touched by the brutality of the recent past. We made a stop at the close-by Land Mine Museum (www.landmine-museum.com) CLICK - and witnessed, in our opinion, the most worthy exhibition on our entire trip. A former land mine operative has channeled his expertise into disarming mines across the country for the UN. He takes in children orphaned or maimed by land-mines every year, and supports them with the proceeds. The government isn't happy with this guy and has shut him down and fined him on a number of occasions. This has only helped him to gain support and admiration for his worthy cause.

From Siem Reap, it was on to the capital, Phnom Penh. We toured the sobering and disturbing Killing Fields and Toul Sleung (aka S21-Genocide Museum)(unofficial site: www.vwam.com/vets/S21/torture1.htm) CLICK. We quickly rushed off to buy ourselves some history books to help us try to understand the psychotic Pol Pot ('Brother Number 1'), and come to grips with this horrendous period of our own lifetimes.

After all the heaviness of the day, we went over to enjoy the Phnom Penh riverside and those famous pizzas! Another lighter moment was a stop at the Happy Gun Range out near the airport. Robin was taken by surprise when she asked her moto driver to take her there and he shouted over his shoulder 'if you're going to want to shoot a chicken, we have to go past the market to buy one first'!!

Given the violent history lesson of the day, we couldn't bring ourselves to support this place. We did enjoy the impromptu free tour by the manager and had a laugh at being handed a 'menu' of firearms and ammunition ('you sure you don't want to shoot the rocket launcher? What about the AK-47? Interesting couple...only want to look!').

After a real effort to get the true facts on the transport back towards Thailand, we inserted the beach destination of Sihanoukville (another good one for a spelling bee!) into our itinerary. We had an amazing couple of days at this incredibly cheap, and relatively undiscovered locale. We'll not soon forget the adorable young fruit girls either. Imagine in a high-pitched teeny-bopper voice 'you say you buy from me, then you don't buy from me - you promise me you buy mango, now you say no mango.' This is what can be expected when you tell too many of them "maybe later"...just ask Neil.

Of course, the ride back to the border was not without a classic minivan breakdown. After an hour and a half, the solution was a passenger controlling the acceleration by a shoelace (with the passenger in control, we made up for lost time). The trip also included 4 river crossings where the local villagers had created their own barges by-way of wooden platforms sitting on top of 3 longtail boats. Being weighed down by 4 vehicles and about 40 people, the barges proved their utility. We were covered in a film of red dirt by the time we arrived at the border and were more than eager to let the Thai's takeover our transportion needs. The small creature-comforts of Thailand were a welcome sight...with the days of rough travel mostly behind us, we had to wonder if had we started to become