Marie Martineau

It's hard to sum up in a few paragraphs how marvellous my trip to Cambodia was with Wild Frontiers. I have been to a lot of places but more than any other, Cambodia touched my heart. The people have been through so much but still have smiles on their faces. They are so warm and friendly, especially the children.

In Peter, Wild Frontiers' man in Indochina, we had the ideal guide and travel companion. He is very passionate and knowledgeable about the country, its culture and its problems as well as being a great deal of fun. An added benefit was meeting so many of Peter's friends, all fascinating people who have a variety of experiences in Cambodia from de-mining, to running a business, to the arts. That part of it was icing on the cake.

Siem Reap and the temples were amazing. I am not much interested in rushing around seeing six temples in one day but would rather soak in one or two; with Wild Frontiers this was possible. We would go out in the morning to take in a temple by wandering around and sitting down to absorb it, then retire to the hotel and the pool from about 11:30am to 3pm, then do another temple in the afternoon before cleaning up for drinks and dinner. Perfect!

Phnom Penh was chaos when we arrived as about 2 million extra people were in town for the water festival. The trip in from the airport was threatening to take hours so Peter scouted ahead and we ended up getting into town on mopeds. So we were having drinks at the Foreign Correspondence Club while the driver was bringing our luggage in through the traffic jam! Pretty dramatic way to enter a city! And what a city! It was just buzzing with energy. Wild Frontiers had gotten us tickets for the pavilion to watch the boat races. An amazing experience, particularly as we even got blessed by the God-King, Sihanouk! And our hotel, overlooking the river, was the perfect place to stay.

After the madness of Phnom Penh, Kampot was the perfect place to go and unwind. We hung out, went out on the boat, went swimming in the river and explored the town. Then we went to Sihanoukville to hang out on the beach. We had a wonderful time playing with some of the local kids. Even a bout of food poisoning couldn't dent the experience. Then back to Phnom Penh for a day and for me (sadly) back to Singapore and then home.

As I said at the top, it was an amazing experience and is an amazing country, to which I lost my heart. Already I want to go back.