February 22nd - Day 16 - Siem Reap - Korat, Thailand

So, our stay in Cambodia has come to an end after six days. What a great time we have had. There have been some truly memorable moments and some we would rather forget, but in remembrance of those who died, we must not. The truth about the unspeakable crimes of the Pol Pot regime must never be forgotten. It is imperative that the world community should never allow anything like it to happen again.

We were up early for a 7am start from the hotel. A 160kms drive more or less due north of Siem Reap brought us to the Cambodian/Thailand border. Those 160kms were on dirt roads with some massive pot holes.

We were driving through some of the poorest agricultural areas of Cambodia we have seen. Bullock carts were a common sight.

As we turned right into one village there was this large poster with the caption 'We no longer need weapons'. A chilling reminder to us of their terrible past.

At one point our track went alongside a small 12th century Angkor bridge.

The last 20kms to the border was along a very rough dirt track and as we approached the border we took this photo of the Cambodian border which shows the potholed track leading to the border and then on the left you can see the concrete road leading into Thailand. We were going from the third world into the first.

We have now all become reasonable adept at handling the customs and immigration papers, especially with the help of our Diethelm guides. Once I had our Carnet stamped by the Cambodian customs, I was about to drive to the exit area, when we passed Richard Smith parked by the side of the road with a flat rear tyre. Out came my new lightweight trolley jack to jack his car up. Then we used my power wrench gun to take the wheel nuts off. Mike Johnson appeared and his brute strength removed the locking wheel nut that we couldn't remove.

Ahmad, who has been travelling with Richard since his transmission failed on his Chevy, and Richard's Landcruiser with the flat tyre.

How many people does it take to change a wheel???

In fifteen minutes it was all done and we moved on to the Thai border controls. These went very smoothly, including having to pay the immigration guard a dollar as overtime pay to work on a Sunday! We then we drove into Thailand for the second time on this tour. We have to remember that we are driving on the left again.

The route to Korat, our next stop, was about 230kms, with the first 100kms through the Thai countryside. We stopped at a place called Phanom Rung, a hilltop Khmer temple built in the 12th Century.

We parked near the top of the hill which is an extinct volcano, with lovely views over over the Thai countryside.

We stood and looked down at the magnificent staircase and causeway that leads to the temple.

The remainder of our drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived at our hotel at about 2.30pm. It's very hot here, with the temperature currently at 38 Celsius.

After we had signed in we were greeted by my school friend Thavi and his wife. They have driven the 250kms from Bangkok to visit us before we leave Thailand for Laos. This evening we will have a meal with them in the hotel