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.