Angkor, Battambang,Phnom Penh and Ban Lung

Will be putting all of my travels in this country in one as I only have a fortnight here and it will take too long to do just each place, plus it will make it a bit drawn out and I don't want to bore everyone!!!

April 28 - from Bangkok to Siem Reap!!

The journey started in Chiang Mai, on the 27th where we had booked another night train and were looking forward to a good nights sleep!!!!  It turned out to be 2 hours late setting off and we had seats, not beds - so not much sleep to be had, then the train broke down and to cut a long story short we arrived in Bangkok at 3pm instead of 9am - just a bit of a difference don't you think!!!!

We had to spend the night in Bangkok as the buses only left for Cambodia in the morning and we couldn't get a flight - or so we were told!!!

The coach for Siem Reap set off early and took us to a village just before the border and informed us that we had to use them to get our visas or they would not hold the bus for us on the other side!  This meant we had to pay more than we should but we could not risk missing the bus and other people paid so it was just Rachel and I and we thought it a little too risky to be entering Cambodia without a bus to get on, although we knew we were being scammed.  And unfortunately that wasn't all - they managed to scam us in the exchange rate of our Baht too -  I was suckered, but not just me!

The road to Siem Reap is call 'The Boulevard of Broken Backsides'  so that gives you a clue as to the state of the road, plus there had been a lot of rain the night before and it was slippy - so you can imagine a wonderful time was had by all in the old banger of a bus we were in!!!!  We eventually arrived in Siem Reap at about 8pm - Not a good day to say the least!!!!

We spent the next day touring around Angkor Wat and the temples of Angkor - Angkor Thom, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm.  There were so many of them and they were over run with tourists, you could hardly get a photo without half a dozen Asian tourists standing in the way!!!  It was boiling hot and we finished by 2pm as we were beginning to feel toasted!!!!

May 1 - Siem Reap to Battambang.

An interesting trip, back along that horrible road, also interesting toilet stops - at the side of the road (I always wondered why the women all wore sarongs and long skirts, they use them to hide themselves whilst using the side of the road as a toilet!!!!)

We stopped for lunch also at the side  of the road and their fast food is really efficient, if you know what you are getting!!!  We eventually arrived in Battambang at about 3.30pm, to be pounced on by motorbike riders offering to take you to various guest houses (they work on commission).  It sounds helpful but there are so many of them pushing to get your custom that it can be quite intimidating.  Then of course there is fitting you and your backpack on the motorbike and driving through the extremely busy streets to the guest house!!!

You wouldn't believe the driving here - ok for one you drive on the right side of the road, however if you want to turn then it's ok to get on the left side until you can work your way across and just keep beeping your horn to let people know you're there and oh if there are any pedestrians well there worth 10 points each!!!???!!!  Absolutely crazy and scary too!!!

After settling into our guest house we then went and booked on a cookery course for the morning $8 and you made 3 dishes and got a cookery book - not bad eh!!!  The course was very good, however the market was an experience, with red ants, deep fried spiders, live fish (out of water), frogs (alive and skinned) - it was enough to put you off eating before you started cooking and God help any vegetarians!!!!

In the afternoon we went for a bike ride around the local villages - the children came running out to see us and try to touch us, some even gave us flowers, we felt like royalty.  The journey back was on the 'bamboo train', a bamboo platform on wheels using a motorbike engine.  There was one track and two way traffic, so if you met something coming the other way the lighter load got off, dismantled the train and reassembled it on the other side of the passing train, it was great fun!!!

The following morning we visited the Killing caves and  that brought us back to earth with a bump!!!

May 3 - Battambang to Phnom Penh

Spent the afternoon travelling to Phnom Penh, arriving at 6.30pm and again were accosted by moto and tuk-tuk drivers who wanted to take us to this or that guest house.  We had an idea where we wanted to go and ended up in a dorm bed for $1 (50p) for the night, as you can imagine, it was bunk beds in the corridor!!!

Spent the next day getting our barrings and having a lazy day (so hard this travelling!!!)  We visited the 'Central Market' and looked at all the copies of designer bags etc - all very cheap and reasonably well made too!!!.  You really get the feel of how poor the country is, with lots of people begging and selling photocopied books or trinkets, anything they can and it's mainly children, who should be in school, so it's hard to say no, but if you don't you are just ensuring that they don't go to school cos this way they can make money!!! 

May 5 - The Killing Fields

This day was really hard - I visited 'Choeung Ek', (the killing fields to most people).  A very sobering experience, how could this have happened and how can people do it?  I supposed we will never really know, and possibly these things are still going on in other countries at this moment in time - can't really believe it until you see all the bones and the clothes still showing under the ground.  It was a very silent place and I think everyone was just overwhelmed by the thought of it.

Next was Tuol Sleng, the secondary school that the Khmer Rouge transformed into a detention and torture centre.  This was where people were detained before they went to the killing fields.  No wonder Cambodian is so poor, all there educated people were slaughtered and so many people have been afraid to be educated up to now.

May 6 - PP to Kratie.

Travelled to the north of Cambodia and stopped in Kratie to see the 'Irwaddy" dolphins, they are endangered and there are only about 80 in the rivers now.  It was similar to the Amazon dolphins that we saw, as they were quite shy and you could only see them in the distance, but never the less we did see quite a few - the taking of photos was trickier though!!!

May 7 - Kratie to Ban Lum.

Intended to get a bus for this trip but had to get a taxi in the end as the rains had caused a bridge to be unfit for the bus!!!  The road was quite poor and rather slippy and it took us about 5 hours to get there, the aim was to go and see a 'crater lake' that was apparently very beautiful.  We had to wait until the next day tho'.  Although Ban Lum is the area capital it was very basic, none of the roads were tarmaced and the rain made them almost impassable.  Luckily we had a 4WD the next day.  The lake was a little disappointing as I had incorrectly assumed it was from a volcano and was expecting something different.  We still managed to have a swim though.  Don't know whether it had been worth all the trouble of getting there in the end!!!

May 9 - Back to PP

The next major experience came today.  The bus set off at 6am, so dry bread for breakfast, it had been going for about an hour, slidding and slipping along the road, when there was a car coming in the opposite direction that didn't pull over far enough and as we passed we got stuck in the mud!!  As the driver tried to get back on to the road it got worse and the back end slid off  the road and into the field at the side - very precarious.  We all got our stuff off and waited further up the road and prayed it didn't rain again!!!

We must have been there a couple of hours when a replacement bus arrived as they were still trying to get the other one back on the road, but they just seemed to be making things worse.  The second bus drove for about another hour and then the driver got out to look under the back end and got back in and drove really slowly to a cafe at the side of the road, we had our lunch and the driver got under the bus and started to fix it ..... 3 hours later we got back on the bus!!!  Needless to say we were late arriving back in PP, it had been a 16/17 hour journey and we eventually got to a guest house at 10.45pm  one heck of a long day!!!!

Back in Pnomh Penh

Thursday was therefore a lazy day and we went to the Russian Market for some cheap rip off clothes, shoes and bags - they have everything you can think of.

Friday we went to the Silver Pagoda - the floor was made of silver tiles!!  The rest of the day was getting ready for our trip to Vietnam and the next part of our journey!!!!