Bye to Battembang

This morning we had a lie in until around half ten and then got up and packed our stuff and checked out of the hostel. I'd been awake since around half 7 as the room was just so hot. It was only as we were leaving and I was turning off the fans that I discovered that despite it being on the highest number, 1 was actually the highest setting.

We settled our bill and ordered lunch from the hostel as we were being picked up from there at half past 1. We ate our food and then hung around for an hour until half 1, then we hung around some more. Time keeping doesn't appear to be Cambodia's strong point. The bus eventually turned up around 2pm and on we got. It was a four hour drive to our next and final Cambodian stop. We stopped around half way for a break. There was one point of the journey that made one couple put on their seat belts. All I knew about the incident was an urgent sounding horn, followed by the bus swerving a little and breaking,  and the sound of something hitting the bus. The driver didn't stop so I assume it wasn't a person but I have no idea. A French dude sitting at the back stood up and looked out the back window with some haste and concern but I couldn't understand what he reported back, as I don't speak French.

We arrived at Siem Reap around 6:15pm and got our bags from the bus. We wee greeted by a Cambodian dude with a sign with our names on. Mr Han's nephew apparently. We had tried to stop Mr Han from leaving us obliged to use his nephews tuktuk services but we hadn't been successful and we were too polite to tell him to go away. So we have made arrangements with him for a tour on a future occasion. He dropped is off at our hostel for free as well so couldn't really say no.

We dropped our bags off and sat on the beds for a bit, which are wide and really high with nothing to stop you rolling off. Then we went out for a wander towards the night market. There are fairy lights everywhere and everything looked so nice. I don't know if they're a permanent fixture or if they are for the new year celebrations happening in a weeks time.  Lauren bought an anklet and we both got drinks. It was still very hot. We returned to the hostel and I skyped mum and we sat in the nicely air conditioned room before going to bed.

Tour by TukTuk

This morning we were picked up at 10am by the tuktuk driver who dropped us off at the hostel yesterday.  We had a full day tour arranged to see some sights around Battembang.

On the way to the first stop we went past a roundabout with a huge statue of a man with a black stick that was apparently magic and helped defeat his enemies. He later become king apparently. Our first stop was at the Bamboo train. Exactly as it sounds, it is little bamboo carts on a train track that you can ride up and down. It was a single track line so if you met any carts coming the other way you had to hop off and the driver would disassemble the cart and put it to the side while the other went past, before reassembling and getting back on. It was pretty cool. The carts went quite fast. We went one way and then back again ten minutes later.

Next we drove out to a rickety bridge across a river to take some photos. On the way the driver, Han, was pointing out all the different fruits growing in the fields. We saw mangoes, pineapples, bananas, coconuts, chillies and lemongrass  (not technically fruits). We also saw peanuts. We stopped and he showed us them by digging a couple out from the soil. I never really realised peanuts grew underground. We also looked at a pagoda and then drove a couple of metres to a Muslim fishing village.  It had a mosque; I'm not sure if that was the only thing that made it Muslim or if exclusively Muslims lived there but that's what Han called it.

Next we drove and stopped next to an empty market. I was a bit confused as to why we had stopped and then Han pointed at the tree. Hanging in the tree were loads of huge fruit bats, hanging upside down with their wings fluttering. It was a bit strange as you expect bats to be hidden away in a cave, not hanging off a tree in broad daylight.

Our next stop was lunch and an old pagoda. We had loads of time at this stop as we had to get the timings right for another place. We had lunch first at a little pop up restaurant at the bottom of the pagoda. The food was actually really nice. We sat around for a while, summoning up the strength to visit the pagoda. We had to climb 358 steps (I counted) in the 35° heat to reach the pagoda ruins. It was hard work. We had a look round the ruins and then headed back down the steps for a drink. We left around 2:45pm-ish.

Our final stop was at some caves. We got motorbikes around the points of interest as it was a long way to walk, we would have died in the heat and we're lazy. The first point of interest was at a temple and the killing caves, where the Khmer Rouge used to throw people down into caves to their deaths. There was a little temple in the cave band a huge sleeping Buddha statue. The temple has a sort of shrine filled with skulls of some of the killing cave victims. There was also a very dark cave area behind the temple bit with some bats in.

The second point of interest was at Pkarslaw cave,  which was less of a cave and also had a temple in it. It was here we first saw the monkeys. They were just hanging around. We saw a mother and her baby and got pretty close to them to take photos. 

The third point of interest was the top of the hill and a third temple,  not in a cave. There was amazing views over the very flat landscape from the top and the temple was pretty nice. There was also a whole load more monkeys, some eating coconuts, some eating ice cream.

After these places we went back down to sit at the bottom of the hill under an entrance to a cave. At around quarter at 6, hundreds upon hundreds of small bays started flying out the cave and off into the distance in one long stream. We sat and watched for a solid 20 minutes while bats flew out and they were still going when we left. It was remarkable. They were a lot smaller than the fruit bats we had seen earlier. It was quite a sight. We then got the tuktuk back to the hostel after a very enjoyable day. We had some food and then called it a day.

5 Pagodas and a Non-existent Night Market

Today we had a very easy day as neither of us got much sleep last night. We hung round the hostel for a while, having breakfast and relaxing. Around 12pm we were able to check in to our room so we took our bags up there and then came back down to complete the paperwork. We sat around the hostel until around 2pm, planning the rest of the trip and then decided to go for a wander round the town, as we are going out of town activities tomorrow.

Our hostel is on the road along the river so we wandered down, stopping at 3 different pagodas on the way. The first one seemed to have accommodation for monks out the front of it. It was basically a block of flats but was a lot dirtier and scruffy-looking than you'd have thought for where such spiritual people live. Most of the pagodas we saw today in general were a bit more unpolished than all the ones we'd seen so far. Presumably this was because they were local temples rather than big tourist attractions.

The second pagoda had a nice garden area and the last pagoda had a fancy entrance way. All of them had a lot of (what I guessed were) tomb type monumental turrets around the main building and a lot of them had coloured strips of cloth draped over them. We don't really know why. It might be something to do with the impending new year celebrations.

We stopped for a drink between the 4th and 5th pagodas and looked for the night market which had been pointed out to is earlier by a tuktuk driver. He told us it started at half 3 and was along the river but we couldn't find it anywhere. Instead we just carried on to the 5th pagoda which was near the hostel, completing our circuit.

We got back to the hostel,  sorted ourselves out and then around half 6 had dinner at the hostel.  I had Ban Chao  (sp? ) -  khmer pancakes filled with pork, beansprouts and onion. Lauren had spaghetti carbonara.  

Then we went back to the room, which was like a sauna and laid down very still in an attempt not to over heat.

Bugs, Buses and Battembang.

Today we have spent the whole day hanging round the hostel and mooching round the town. It's been absolutely chucking it down for the last 2ish hours, and the streets have streams running down them, deep enough to cover my flipflops in some places.

At around 7:15pm a tuktuk turned up and we were told that this was our pick up for the best. So we piled in, along with 3 others and all our bags and headed off in the torrential downpour to get the bus. It was supposed to leave at 7:30pm but it was gone 8 by the time it did eventually leave.

Instead of the usual sleeping bus, this one had double sleeping compartments on one side and single 'beds' on the other. They were all fully reclined you could lie down flat and even with both of us in a double one there was more room. There was also charging points, although ours didn't actually work.

We stopped at half 10 for a half hour break and then continued on our way. We made it to Phnom Penh around half 1. I'm not entirely sure why they send the bus that route, as I'm sure it's a lot longer, and there is another bus that goes to Phnom Penh, but that's what happened. We had another toilet stop just before 4am and eventually got to Battembang sometime after 8.

It was not a fun journey.  I couldn't get comfortable, I was too hot and there were fairly sizeable bugs everywhere. I was a bit paranoid they were going to crawl in my ear or up my nose while I was trying to sleep. My knee also started to ache for no apparent reason, and Lauren's back was hurting. Neither of us got much sleep.

When we got off the bus we were met by hoards of tuktuk drivers and we got one to the hostel, where we arrived at around 8:30am, and that is now where we are sitting and relaxing.