Battambang

13/5/2011 - 15/5/2011

Well I was going to stop and spend a night at Moung Roessei (halfway to Batambang) but it was just a wee village and nowhere to stay so I pushed on to Batambang.  The last 10km into the city became a race against time with some very black rain clouds coming over, lightning starting and winds picking up fast! The closer I got to town the stronger the wind and it was a head wind, down to 15kph battling the wind but I had to make it to town to find a somewhere for shelter.  Made it to town not getting too wet and oddly enough the rains didn’t even come to anything anyway – what was all the fuss about, so hard to predict the weather here!

Yali and Me - I'm actually tall in this country 

Batdambang, I think, has been one of my favourite cities in Cambodia.  A city that has all the nice benefits of small towns (easy going, not too many people, you have your own space and don’t get constantly harassed), there are lots of places and sites to see, a great market with food galore and the people here all seem to be happy and willing to help you.  A good place to be.  To speak of the nice people here I randomly walked past one fella (Yali) who just said “Hello, where are you from?” I replied and from that he has since invited me over for dinner and lunch both days I have been here and shown me sites around the place – including a night at ‘The Disco’, classic, it was a full on club; strobe lights, lasers, smoke machines and a first time encounter with lady boys – hilarious!  Nothing dodgy but Yali pointed them out to me, some of them you really cannot tell.

With Yali being my tour guide I got to see the tourist sites as well as a bit of the local community around his place.  Yali is a poor man and it’s pretty amazing how generous he was and being able to see how his family get by.

Their wee kid Missey (named after a famous Argentinian footballer).  Yali has another boy called Wayne Rooney who lives with his parents. Can you guess where he got the name from...

Dinner. A whole chicken, rice and soup - really tasty

Zalina and Yali - in the kitchen

All of us at dinner

Sites:

• Wat Phnom Ek – a really old temple built by the first king, older than Angkor Wat 

Rather precariously balanced centre

The Monks drum - and it's still used

• Bamboo Train – a crazy simple train contraption made of a wooden frame and bamboo slates to sit on.  It ticks along at what feels like 100kph (probably more like 30 or 40kph) bumping and swaying everywhere on the rather basic track lines to say the least.  Oh and there is only one track so encountering another train it is a matter of chicken… nah one group jumps off and literally takes their train off the tracks for you to pass, then on you continue.

 

the dismount required when you encounter another train

• The Killing Caves – A series of deep caves used by the Khmer Rogue to throw people into whether they were already dead or not didn’t matter.  Another one of those sickening historical sites.

Again I looked into getting a ferry to get to my next destination - Siamreap.  It looked like a cool way to travel and see the things from a different perspective.  Talked to the hotel staff (who sold tickets) and they said you can do it but it is quite slow.  Thinking slow, like 4 hours slow?  No slow here means the ferry that left at 8am from Siamreap had not yet arrived, and it was about 5pm.  They say it takes 7 – 10 hours to go by ferry and it’s only around 150km!  I had second thoughts about sitting on a ferry for that long with one stop on the way for lunch and a toilet off the back… so decided to bike over a couple of days instead. I keep seeming to choose the hard option of getting places.  One day I will relax, not worry and get on a slow boat.