I would advise that nobody should try to fly all the way across the world and back in a week unless they REALLY REALLY have to. Getting of the plane at Heathrow and immediately going into central London on a packed commuter tube train with jet lag killed us. But, long story short, we got our Chinese visas!

It was so nice to go home, see the family, hug the dogs and spend some time drinking tap water and relaxing. It turned out to be a great recharge of the travelling batteries and the perfect opportunity to offload some useless space wasting items we hadn’t even used, as well as the chance the stock up on some essentials like paracetamol and toothpaste – we just wish we could have done it under less stressed, last minute circumstances! You live and learn…

Despite numerous phone calls, emails and reassurances to the contrary, it was in the Cambodian capital’s Chinese Embassy that we were finally told that there was no way to secure a visa for longer than 30 days on the road. We’d spent ages getting photocopies, print outs, passport pictures and forms only to be immediately turned away from the counter and we felt both deflated and panicked as we realised the only option was fly back to the UK.

This presented 3 main challenges: 1) timing (when could we reasonably make the trip home? We were going to have to cut out a part of our itinerary and which was really sad after all the planning and preparation we’d done), 2) the cost (the price of return flights half way across the world was eye watering, not to mention all the flights and prepaid accommodation that would be lost), and 3) actually getting a visa (the official way to get a visa from the embassy is through an agency that required appointments which were fully booked up months in advance). There was also an added complication that Joe’s parents had a fully booked holiday for us all through Vietnam in just over a week so we HAD to be in Ho Chi Minh city for the start of that. All this meant we really only had two options: fly home now and miss out the last week of Cambodia or fly after Vietnam and miss out Hong Kong.

Many hours of googling flights, phone calls home to parents and agencies in London (not easy given the time difference!) and lots of considering which bits of the trip we were willing to sacrifice later, we booked absolutely last minute flights home from Phnom Penh via Kuala Lumpur, returning to South East Asia after 8 days but this time to Ho Chi Minh. We found an expensive agency who could get our visas through an express service without an appointment in advance, giving us time to get everything sorted and still be back in SE Asia for the start of the family Vietnam trip. Phew!

I don’t know about you, but when I think about ‘travel blogs’, I mainly think about envy inspiring rose-tinted pictures, funny stories and general light-heartedness occasionally mixed with some warnings, advice and tips. We always said when we started this ‘diary’ that we wouldn’t shy away from telling the truth about our experiences because in many ways this platform can obscure reality, creating a disconnect between what is really going on and what you want the people who read your blog to see and more importantly feel. Sometimes, posts need to be serious and space needs to be dedicated to difficult subjects, which in this part of the world relates heavily to war and genocide. It goes without say that some of the details in this post may be difficult to read and we appreciate that not everyone will be comfortable with the disturbing details – if you think this may apply to you, you are more than welcome to stop reading here. However, we believe that part of travelling as responsible tourists is not just taking lots of photos for Facebook. Part of our responsibility is to learn about and understand local history and culture, and in Cambodia, this includes the country’s very violent and very recent past.

Our next stop in Cambodia was somewhere we hadn’t really heard of before, but decided would be a good pit-stop between Siem Reap and our final destination, Phnom Penh. Th majority of those travelling in Cambodia will probably pass through the smaller city of Battembang, but it doesn’t really have a reputation in the wider backpacking community. Because of the this, whilst the area had a good number of hotels and restaurants, it had a much less touristy vibe and felt a lot more relaxed that we had anticipated.

After being in Laos, arriving in Siem Reap was like landing in a different world. In many ways the city is like landing back in Europe - bright lights, hipster coffee shops and buckets of avocado on toast make it feel like a home away from home. A very cheap but pretty fancy hotel was waiting for us and the place was stuffed with tuk tuks offering cheap fares to where ever. When you’re travelling, sometimes the ease of getting around in a place designed almost exclusively for tourists is actually really nice, as you can switch off for a while and indulge in some home comforts. After recovering from the cramped ride across the Laos/Cambodia border, we were looking forward to exploring arguably one of the most famous places in the world – Angkor Wat. Having failed to repeat our biking success from Sokohthai at the Plain of Jars, we thought we’d given it one more shot in Siem Reap to explore the Angkor complex and surrounding ruins on pedal power alone. Long story short, it did not go well.

This post is a little out of time order but is dedicated to one of the worst sets of bus journeys we’ve been on since leaving Peru, which we felt deserved their own special mention. Half built roads, overturned trucks, questionable overtaking, thick fog, mountain ridges and narrow bends are just some of the obstacles to be over come when touring Laos by road (the other options include taking propeller planes between regional airports using airlines with questionable safety records- also a terrifying prospect). Journeys of 200 miles take 12 hours, the buses have no air-conditioning and stop every 20 minutes for seemingly no reason (or for cigarette breaks, or to allow ladies with whole barbecued chickens on sticks to enter the bus and waft them in your face, or for the driver to chat to his mates...)

Let’s take a moment to honour the friends we’ve lost along the way…

Touch wood we haven’t had anything stolen yet (pretty impressive to be honest) but the upshot is if you go on a trip like this don’t get too attached to anything because the chances are you’ll leave it at some kind of transport station.

The overwhelming characteristic of tourism in Laos seems to be ‘sleepy’. Restaurants with rows and rows of tables for crowds of people sit almost empty, guesthouses with 30 rooms are only ever a quarter full, shops stock cobweb and dust covered items that haven’t been touched in years and the major attractions seem almost deserted save a few stall owners and Laotians exploring their own cultural heritage. It’s a far cry from the booming tourist trail in Thailand and it comes both as a blessing and curse. On the one hand, you have interesting sights almost to yourself, hiring a motorbike is relatively safe given the lack of people and traffic and there is always the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful landscape in total peace. On the other hand, transit is difficult, basic and prone to overcharging, shops are few and far between and there’s no such thing as haggling against ridiculously overpriced items (the stall owners know you have nowhere else to go so if you won’t pay $5 for a bottle of water then you won’t be getting any water!) And the area in the Mekong River known collectively as 4000 Islands, or Si Phan Don in Lao, was no exception…

After the biking adventures of Phonsavan we headed for Chompasak in the South West of Laos. This required some epic bus journeys and stops in smaller towns along the way (more on that coming later), but the main reason was to see the ruins of Vat Phu. Built by the same civilisation of Angkor Wat fame, Vat Phu is an earlier and now ruined Khmer Hindu temple complex which became a centre of Buddhist worship. It’s location at the base of mount Phu Kao makes for some steep steps and some beautiful views in a setting that is much quieter than it’s Cambodian sibling.