This is a meaty one and for a couple of excellent reasons; the first being that we have a special guest with us on this leg of the expedition, none other than (drum roll please) Mummy Moss! The Ruthster herself heard we were ditching Nepal and heading to Cambodia and thought she’d come along for the ride.

The second reason this blog is lengthy and full of pictures is thanks to Angkor Wat, crown jewel of Cambodia, and the temples surrounding it. Angkor Wat is considered the 8th wonder of the world (Google, 2025) and is an enormous monument built initially to revere Hinduism, later to be transformed into a Buddhist monastery as the Khmer religious majority shifted. After being abandoned for hundreds of years at the fall of the Khmer Empire, it was rediscovered in the jungle in the 19th Century and now stands as one of the greatest ancient monuments of all time.

More important than family or history, here’s another ambient video for you. It covers all of our time in Cambodia: Kratie, Mondulkiri, Koh Rong and Siem Reap.

Day 56 cont. – Travel to Siem Reap

How lovely it was to knock on the hotel room next door and have my sweet mother standing there with a big smile on her face, proclaiming how hot it was outside and regaling us with her stories of the taxi ride from the airport; of course she had befriended the driver and learnt his life story.

We’re in some fancy digs this time – only the best for darling mama. Having slogged it across a jungle, the ocean and an 8 hour minivan, we were happy to hit the atmospheric pool, catch up, relax and introduce mum to the local Khmer cuisine.

Day 57 – An introduction to Siem Reap

We’re in Siem Reap for a whopping 10 days and we have a 3-day temple pass (there’s lots to see under one pass). Mum was still acclimatising both time and heat wise, so we made the very wise move to not head straight into temple territory, but instead nipped out on a more casual jaunt… Firstly on a remorque (like a tuk tuk, but bigger and more breezy) to lunch, where we delighted in cold coconuts, spring rolls and curries.

Onwards, then, to Angkor National Museum, which details the history of the Khmer Empire and it’s various rulers, Angkor Wat, the other temples, religion and religious art in Cambodia. It was great to get some insight into what we were due to explore in coming days, as well as get a taste for some of the sculptures that would await us, chatting about which styles we enjoyed the most and pointing out the various deities we’d learnt from our time in Hindu India. Ganesha, the elephant god of luck and wisdom, is always an easy one to spot… There was also a lovely garden to wander through.

Finally, we visited the Royal Independence Gardens, a short walk away. We wanted to disabuse mum of the notion that Cambodia was all sunshine and stone sculptures and show her something raw and natural… you guessed it… bats!

Yes, many large fruit bats, or flying foxes as they’re known, live in the huge trees here. We were there a touch early so it wasn’t the dramatic mass exodus from the trees we’d hoped for, but some spread their large wings and flew around a bit. Otherwise they just hung out there while we got neck strain trying to watch them and I got even more neck strain trying to photograph and film them.

It was a lovely area for people watching, and we stayed for a good hour or two as we all got a feeling for the local hubbub. People were playing this super impressive sport similar to hackey sack but with a sort of weighted shuttlecock, while others were buying beautiful lotus flowers from stalls to offer at the nearby Buddhist temple, which we paid a small visit to.

Day 58 – Angkor Wat & Bayon Temple

After a day of rest and research, we were ready to hit the temples. We figured Wat else to do but hit the ground running and visit Angkor bloody Wat itself. We jumped in a remorque and 20 minutes later found ourselves at the entrance, with a short walk down the grand promenade and Angkor Wat’s spires ahead of us.

I won’t lie, it didn’t have the same ‘holy shit’ impact the Taj Mahal does the first time you see it. It’s not as enormous or magnificent a facade from a distance, but as you get closer and understand the size of the complex and walk around it all, it is truly awe inspiring.

There is a mega moat around it, and you have to cross a huge bridge which has amazing stone sculptures of men twice the normal size pulling a massive naga (snake) – a motif which repeats itself in the famous Churning of the Ocean of Milk (we’ll get to that later) and in other temples. We started by walking around the outer walkway of the temple, the ENTIRETY of which is covered in bas-relief stone carvings. You could perhaps draw comparison to the Bayeaux Tapestry in the form of a stone carving; you wouldn’t be miles off with the year either, with Angkor Wat being completed about 100 years later.

The stories depicted here are all Hindu, as that’s the religion the temple was originally built to worship. The little boards helped us discern what the hell was going on and had us searching for various gods or demons.

“Billie, I found her, she was hiding behind one of those bloody columns again!”

We eventually came to The Churning of the Ocean of Milk (not THE catchiest name), the most famous bit of the bas reliefs. It depicts Devas (gods) and Asuras (demons) having a big old tug of war with a snake king who is wrapped around a mountain in order to churn the ocean to extract the elixir of immortality. Vishnu is in the centre, incarnated as a turtle (as you do) to act as the pivot point to it all. It is 49 metres long, which is very long indeed.

We walked towards the central area of the temple, enjoying the cool breeze the ingenious architects built in to keep everyone as cool as possible. AC was a good 800 or so years off at this stage. Eventually we came out into the central courtyard, which has brilliant views of Angkor Wat’s spires. The largest central one was accessible so we left a knackered mum on a step and struggled up.

Here we found another series of walkways and a sort of courtyard space (in the tower…). At the centre were four outward facing niches each with a Buddha within where people made offerings and prayed. It is thought that an humungous Vishnu statue was once here but was destroyed when Buddhism became the dominant religion. Maybe they’ll find it one day!

The likeness is uncanny I’m sure you’ll agree

Thoroughly sweaty, yet gratified from the successful self-guided tour, we headed to the nearby stalls for a restoring, cold coconut to drink and a fridge magnet or two.

Back to the hotel – it was midday and the heat truly unbearable! A swim, a lunch and we were revived… Were we three done sightseeing for the day? Hell no! So we got another remorque and set our sights on Bayon, sight number two of the Angkor Archeological Park, and my favourite temple of them all.

The faces of Bayon are just fricking cool. They appear on many of the gates entering the temples, largely of those built by Buddhist King Jayavarman VII (12C) and after, and then you see a whole forest of them on spires at Bayon, Jayavarman VII’s crown jewel.

Central to Angkor Thom, just NE of Angkor Wat, we were free to walk Bayon Temple’s crumbling structure. Mum bravely clambered over large uneven stones as we explored the truly stunning bas-relief carvings, arches, spires and smiling faces of Bayon as the sun descended, casting it all in the golden glow of sundown.

Please don’t let this stop you reading on, but Bayon Temple was my favourite. The massive faces just did it for me, they’re awesome and I’ve never seen the like. Interestingly a lot of the local people we asked, taxi drivers or hotel staff, said the same. Despite taking up most of the flag of Cambodia, Angkor Wat does not necessarily reign supreme even in it’s very local vicinity.

Day 59 – Ta Prohm & friends

We were pumped up from the previous day’s success and ready to hit the temple track again. Our remorque rides in and out of the temple complex were getting longer as our destinations grew further away, so it was 30 minutes out to a famous temple that adorns many a fridge magnet; Ta Prohm AKA the Tomb Raider temple. Unfortunately for it, it was used as a location for the mediocre 2001 Angelina Jolie film. It deserves better, frankly.

However, the location scouts chose it for good reason, the way nature has overtaken it really captures the mind. It is what we all think finding an ancient ruin in the jungle looks like, but times ten because it’s an incredible, huge temple and it has striking white roots of giant trees, thicker than a person, growing in and out of out of its crevices, holding it all up at this stage.

Ta Prohm was actually built as a monastery and university shortly after Bayon, and by the same ruler, Jayavarman VII. It’s still referred to as a temple though. Maybe it is both?

This one was really busy, and we had to queue for some of the iconic pics. They were worth it, but honestly the same rooty goodness was all around wherever you looked. The light filters attractively through the dappled canopy above but the heat was nevertheless intense. After a full hour of exploring the grounds, we exited under a smiling face gate. Ta Prohm was Billie’s favourite, and I don’t blame her!

Next was Banteay Kdei, another university built around the same time. It had a mini Ta Prohm feel and we enjoyed walking through it, posing next to the big trees and finding weathered sculptures in nooks and crannies.

We stopped in at neighbouring Srah Srang, a reservoir with an ancient docking platform. Mum had started working on some excellent poses.

Lastly on to Pre Rup, a very different affair! A much earlier 10th Century Hindu Temple built with lots of sandstone, some of which in red bricks. You might note that the shape of it – four smaller spires surrounding a larger middle spire – is the same design as Angkor Wat, and is known as a mountain temple. We considered this something of a small scale test run for Angkor Wat.

We’d done temples two days in a row and seen SO MUCH. There was loads more, but we had another day on our pass and we didn’t want to push ourselves in the heat and stop enjoying it. Also, you can’t see everything here unless you are some sort of temple obsessed freak. There’s just too much, so it’s best to see the popular bits and also pick some lesser visited places for a peaceful experience where you get to explore without the pressure of people pushing you on. We called it a day and went back to our hotel to rest up, enjoy the pool and our books.

Day 60 – Botanical Gardens, RATS and the circus!

Today, mum needed a very necessary morning of rest – two days of temple hopping in a row while jet lagged is no mean feat and frankly she’s been overperforming. So we leave her to bask in the poolside jungle area of our fancy hotel and explore a couple of Siem Reap’s alternative attractions starting with the botanical gardens. These lovely gardens were quite a serene, slow and peaceful start to the day. The heat was remarkably intense, and so we gratefully ducked into the air conditioned café for an incredibly strong iced coffee after walking round.

After that it was the very interesting APOPO Centre, just a hop across the road. At APOPO they train animals to detect landmines in places of need all across the world. They use dogs too, but their most successful animal is the rat or as they call them HeroRATS. They’re actually African Giant Pouched Rats and they’ve been trained over a number of years to scratch at the ground when they smell TNT. Because they weigh approx. 1.5kg, they don’t set off landmines, which have a minimum requirement of 5kg to detonate.

So… these rats are actually the perfect solution to the problem; metal detectors pick up shrapnel or… well anything metal. A coin, a bottlecap. Each time you come across something, you have to carefully check it isn’t a mine before you continue. A HeroRAT can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes, where it would take a human with a metal detector around 4 days.

Add this to Cambodia’s landmine and unexploded bomb problem… it is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, it has an estimated four to six MILLION mines due to the Khmer Rouge Regime and the Vietnam War, and much more unexploded bombs dropped by Americans during the Vietnam-American War. A somewhat lesser known (at least by me) aspect of the Vietnam War was that when Cambodians began to supply the Vietnamese, Nixon dropped enormous numbers of bombs on Eastern Cambodia, killing tens of thousands. Jump forward to 2025 and, as if it could get any worse, Trump has halted USAID which actually funds the demining process here in Cambodia, so the entire process briefly ground to a halt, and now China have stepped in to provide the funding. I will say no more on this upsetting subject other than that the Cambodian Government are committed to clearing Cambodia of mines entirely by 2030, so there is some positive news.

ANYWAY, we got to hold a rat! Their biggest one called Mr Jordan (titters from the crowd) is very friendly and even rat-hater Billie who wasn’t going to hold it gave in and gave it a cuddle. It was very cute and licked my hand a lot. Don’t worry, I washed it thoroughly after.

This evening, we had booked to go to the circus! Why the bloody hell not, eh? It came well recommended and we had front row seats (by pure chance). It was truly quite astonishing. Incredibly impressive and there was a story about materialism and wealth which was represented by rice. The acrobatics were heart wrenchingly difficult, the consequences of messing up not worth considering…

Day 61 – Shopping with mum!

Today it was Billie’s turn to rest up, and so I had an afternoon out with my dearest mother. We went to gaudy ‘Pub Street’ for a nice lunch and ordered way too much.

And after that we hit up the Central Market, an enormous maze of shops, with a big food market as well as tourist shops selling everything from clothes, bags, scarves, magnets, paintings, carvings, bowls, bookmarks and everything in between. Almost all the shops had identical products, so it was a matter of just wandering around and nattering to people and buying a few bits from one shop and then a few bits from another. Mum got a bunch of small pressies for family and friends.

Points if you can identify the temples in the paintings…

Day 62 – Banteay Srei & other temples

We took the plunge and decided we’d use the final day of our 3-day ticket and see the hour-distant but very special Banteay Srei. Then on the way back home, we’d visit a few recommended temples in the main complex: Ta Som, Neak Poan and Preah Khan.

We arrived at Banteay Srei and, upon ticket scanning, were told our tickets had expired as we had used our three days up. They said we’d entered one of the temples at 6am the previous morning. Not the case! We escalated and sat there for about 45 minutes while a poor security guy dealt with his boss over the phone who was adamant we couldn’t go in. When at one point it seemed like the answer was no, Mum, Billie and I all burst out with arguments “I want to speak to your boss in person, right here, right now!”, “we’ve shown you pictures with timestamps of when we were at that temple and you KNOW we weren’t there then.” etc. His face was a horrified picture of despair and I would have loved to take a picture. He got back on the phone with his boss and we were eventually let through. I took a video of him explaining the entire situation so we could explain it to the temples later, which I’m pleased to report worked.

Banteay Srei was Mum’s favourite temple of the lot, and I can definitely see why. It’s famed for its intricate pediments (the bit above a door) and lintels (the bit above columns) which are remarkably well preserved and beautiful to look at. The red sandstone makes it quite the different experience, and there are great Hindu characters throughout: Hanuman and Garuda making special appearances. Well worth the trip out!

Back to the main complex we went, firstly to Ta Som, which was a nice wander and had particularly nice gates with smiling faces, and the western gate had a big tree growing up and through it.

Onwards, then, to Neak Poan, a temple built on a small island in a massive reservoir. We walked out on a big wooden boardwalk / bridge, and there were lilies and snakebirds in abundance. After a small walk through some jungle, we arrived at the temple itself, similarly arranged in the mountain temple style, but with water basins instead of spires, with four water basins surrounding a larger central one with a temple structure in the middle. Very beautiful to stroll around.

Lastly, Preah Khan which was magnificent, and I was so glad we went. It’s really, really big and just has so many beautiful windows into nature. I spent a long time with my camera, finding interplay between the ruins and the greenery of the surrounding jungle. A truly impressive structure and it even had its own bridge with the giant figures holding a snake, like Angkor Wat.

It was a superb end to our temple hopping experience and we felt like we’d done the perfect amount. We repeatedly discussed how much variety there is in the complex, temples centuries apart in different styles, for different religions and in different states of repair. You might think you’d get bored after you’ve seen one or two, but you absolutely don’t. It’s awe inspiring, educative, beautiful and just… fun!

Days 63 to 66 – Siem Reap

We spent the remainder of our time together exploring the city, shopping, reading, chilling, eating and chatting. It was divine to spend time with my mum after two and a half months of just bloody Billie, Billie, Billie (lol).

I will regale you with one last adventure… we set off on a boat tour to Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in South-East Asia, enormous especially during rainy season when it is FIVE times larger than in dry season. There are floating villages upon it, and, along with the beauty of the lake and associated flora and fauna, this is a major draw for some tourist boat tours. We went further afield to the largest village on the river called Kampong Khleang. A note here to say that we checked the weather forecasts throughout our stay and it often said there were huge storms coming and not once did this come true. Once it rained in the morning when it said it would, that was it. Basically, it had cried wolf too many times. I sense that you can now see where this is going… but honestly, the weather was totally fine right up until about thirty seconds before we parked the car at which point it got crazy.

Wind blew dust all around, things flying around this big courtyard above the docks. Kids running for cover, shopkeepers running out to get their wares. This huge, fantastical water village on massive stilts on the river jumping into action, boats hurtling down the river. Minivan drivers looking worriedly out towards the lake where their clients had the misfortune of being on a boat tour at that very moment.

Needless to say, we did not board a boat… we got back in the car and drove back to our hotel, this time through extremely heavy, pouring rain. The village on the way back was full of action too, with people preparing for the storm which I think mostly involved getting things out of the rain, especially things that were out specifically to dry (rice, chillies etc). It was quite remarkable to watch go by, and very dramatic with lightning lighting up the sky too. Some of it is captured in the end of my ambient video at the top of the post, if you can make it to the end!

And so there ends our time in Cambodia. It was pure joy to have mum over, and it was really special to share these adventures with her. Cambodia was an amazing unplanned stop on our trip and I’d recommend it to anyone. It has an incredible ancient history and an agonizingly sad recent history. The nature is wild and varied and the people couldn’t be more friendly. People say this a lot about countries, but in Cambodia it really is very noticeable how lovely everyone is. The food is good, the travelling cheap… what more could you want?

See you in Vietnam for the next episode of So Long London.