Day 2 - on to Cambodia and Siem Reap

A 6am start is typical of the way the tour develops, but there's lots to see in 12 days. Travelling by private minibus and public bus for the duration, the large leather seats on our bus to the border prove to be the exception. Thailand's smoothly surfaced dual carriageways are no preparation for what greets us in Cambodia, one of the world's poorest countries.

We walk across the border, past Poipet's tacky casinos, and pick up our lift to Siem Reap, the city that borders the Khmer temple region of Angkor - the bus is large but old fashioned, reminiscent of former Soviet countries. There's plenty of corruption on the ground and tourist transport has to be arranged through local 'mafia'.

This is supposed to be the main crossing from Thailand to Cambodia, yet at the edge of town the main road to the country's second city is nothing more than a dirt track, consisting of mounds of Martian red earth raised high above the burnt-out corn and paddy fields in preparation for the wet season floods. At frequent intervals the largely straight road takes short detours around broken bridges. The infrastructure has not recovered from conflicts that finally ended with the death of Pol Pot in 1998.

It's a busy road and the kamikaze driver overtakes through clouds of dust with almost zero visibility. Craters are unavoidable - rucksacks are flung forward towards those sitting on or behind the rear axle who are already dealing with zero-gravity in between avoiding the roof with their heads and the sharper bits of seat with their rears on the journey back down.

Children play in schools and vehicles go about their business - mopeds laden with huge loads of goods, slow-moving lorries, modern 4x4s belonging to NGOs or the wealthy, and strange agricultural trailers with lawnmower engines. The roadside villages and houses are mostly wooden shacks on stilts, with the occasional brick building housing schools, political party meeting halls or homes for the well-off. Those close to the road are blanketed in red dust.

It takes four hours on the road in Cambodia to travel 100 miles to Siem Reap. Sanity returns with dinner at a restaurant run for orphans. Intrepid finds these charitable eateries throughout the trip. They usually offer the best food for only a couple of dollars more.

Day 3: Siem Reap and the Angkor temples

A 5.30am start for the short journey out to Angkor Wat. Thanks to their relatively recent discovery and Cambodia's even more recent conflicts the site is still not over-run with tourists. There are five-star resort hotels but the city is coping so far.

It's here that the plight of the people starts to hit home. Romantic thoughts of wandering away from the tourist trails to see the many smaller temples swallowed by the jungle are thwarted by warnings of landmines. The cobras hold no fear in comparison, so we have to leave our Indiana Jones hats at home.

Most visitors here early huddle on the far bank of a pond that provides the foreground for the iconic sunrise shot of Ankor Wat and it's spectacular towers. The hundred or so tripod-wielders is the closest we come to any overcrowding. Our next stop is a tour of the temple itself. Our guide, Yous Sans, amuses the group with his mockney accent and western phrases - "let's rock 'n' roll". Yous learnt his English as a Buddhist monk in a pagoda, avoiding the civil war. The temple was the crowning glory of the Khmer empire before the Siamese encroached in the 15th century, when the Khmer capital was moved to Phnom Penh.

Ta Prohm is the most famous temple that remains swallowed by the jungle, it's a beguiling mess of moss-covered green rubble and dilapidated towers and walls, with giant silk cotton trees growing through and over the walls. We have the whole temple to ourselves just before lunchtime, apart from coach loads of Korean tourists who bus in from the other side of the temple to crowd into the room made famous by a shot of Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. It keeps the hoards out of the way, and there's equally impressive chambers around the site.

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