14/3/18 - Day 46

Nice relaxing morning at our hotel in SR, time for a yoga session and some reading by the pool. Bus leaves from Siem Reap at lunchtime, heading to Battambang (3.5 hrs, $8 each). Arrived at bus station, met by our tuktuk driver ‘Sam’, driven to our hotel, Sanctuary Villa, which it is, not that Battambang is too crazy by comparison to SR.

Dumped bags and straight out to see Pharse Ponleu Selpak - Cambodian’s answer to Circe de Soliel, fabulous and very entertaining, fantastic performers and all for a great cause (helps to fund art college students). After the show, headed back to our hotel for food. I tried the Fish Amok which is a local, Khmer curry, very tasty but boy the drinks where bad (and I mean bad but not in a good way).

15/3/18 - Day 47

Slept really well despite heat and threat of mozzy invasion... breakfast ok, decided to hire a moped as all the sites are easy to do from here and roads seem bearable (I still have to shut my eyes a lot which is tricky as I’m managing the satnav!)

After the moped arrived we headed out to the Green Orange Cafe which is about 10km outside of Battambang. It was a little chaotic when we arrived and no one spoke English and our Cambodian isn’t that hot either. They called their local clergyman (!) out who came to translate (or administer last rights I couldn’t be sure!?) and once we got everything straightened out (and a few prayers said!), off we went down the Sangker River ($12 pp well spent). It was lovely seeing all kinds of life, kids swimming, people bathing, cleaning their teeth, fishing, you name it and everyone was so friendly despite us dropping in on them, we were the only barangs (foreigners) around. One thing there’s no shortage of is plenty of rubbish! Eventually worked out where our drop off point was paddling the kayak to the Night Market sign and reunited with our moped again. Back to the hotel to change out of wet gear and back out to Coconut Lyly for lunch then relaxed by the pool with my book and planned the next bit of our adventure. I also actually managed to fall asleep by the pool but woke myself up snoring (v embarrassingly). Out with Mr P tonight to the Battambang night market...After the night market found an amazing restaurant (Jaan Bai) which is partially funded by Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT), amazing food and inspiring kids working there...one little guy in particular who spoke with a cockney accent but who has never set foot outside of Battambang (watches loads of U.K. tv!!).

16/3/18 - Day 48

Exploring Battambang Province by moped...


First stop Bamboo Train, I wouldn’t bother doing this again unless I had small children in tow, not a patch on the original train that actually served a purpose.

Then onto Banan Temple which is obviously not a patch on what we’ve just seen in SR but once you make the climb it’s worth the views and hardly any other tourists around. BUT the real star of the show for me here at Banan is when you climb down from the temples, there is a beautiful lake and half way round the lake they have built these little bungalows slightly out over the water where you can order up some food (they don’t speak English so vegetables and rice, water and pineapple they understood so we got by). We then spent a very leisurely few hours lying in hammocks and enjoying the view, the food was good too.

Next stop for sunset was Phnom Shapov caves and temples, the caves are famously former killing caves but now home to millions of bats which make their exit in union just around sunset. We made our way from Banan around 4 and travelled down the dusty dirt tracks for about 8km, absolutely covered in grit and grime, but they it’s part of the experience. We managed to get up to the temple on the moped, but it’s not worth the trek although the gateway arch (which appears to have Noah’s Ark atop is), we didn’t feel like seeing the killing caves, preferring to stake our claim to a position down in the village at the base of the mountain to wait for sunset. The bats didn’t disappoint, they streamed out in their millions just as I was making my way back from the toilets ironically... J said it absolutely reeked of ammonia (I think he meant the bats and not me, but not sure) but I couldn’t smell anything as just been assaulted by toilet smells anyway. After the bats stopped streaming out of the caves everyone that’s there (mainly tourists) clambers into their transport and heads back to Battambang, J managed to position the moped for a quick get away and we blatted back to Batt...getting like a pro on this moped thing.

Got back to our hotel and washed off grime and flies! Packed and went back to Jaa Bai in my PJ’s (no one would know because women seem to dress in their PJ’s out here) for a quick bite before falling into bed, shattered! Off to Phnom Phen tomorrow by bus early...