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burrr burrrr burrrr. Alarm clock sounding at 5 30 am.
Ok so we had to be out side and waiting for a minibus to collect us to take us to a port so we could board a boat to go to Battambang. Were getting use to the early starts so it's no problem for me getting up now. As usual the bus was late collecting us. Only 40 minutes so that's not to bad. Nick and neal were coming with us too. What a start to the journey. There must have been 25 or more of us crammed in to the back of this tiny minibus. There was some really annoying fat american guy talking a load of rubbish sitting next to us, going on about how he has done this journey before, how bad the service was and being generally rude about the cambodian people. If you don't like it mate why leave your perfect country!!!!
So we get to the port and get our luggage and board this long tail boat. Some how nick managed to lose his bag on the journey. Well so he thought. Some local guy had already loaded it on to the boat and we didn't know. He was frantically looking fir it for twenty minutes and then some one suggested he looks on our boat. Here it was so panic over. What a start to the day. Lets hope the boat doesn't sink now.
We boarded the top deck as there was no seats left down stairs now. A blessing really as we have all the room in the world, great views,nice breeze and of course the sun blaring down on us. The boat journey was to take six hours. We laid back and lapped the sunshine up. I'm not a big user of sun cream and this was going to prove to be a drastic mistake. I fell asleep for an hour or two and my face has never been so burnt. Always wear sun cream kids. Lesson learnt for me. The boat journey was amazing. At first we was going down a river that turned in to a huge lake. Beautiful scenery all around. We was surrounded by mountains and lots of marsh lads. The land is usually fields. Farm land i suppose. There were people living there, doing there daily jobs completely oblivious to us sailing by. After a while the lake formed in to a swamp land/ jungle. It was amazing, here we was sailing through a jungle in a swamp getting whacked by vines. The only way to picture it would be floating down the amazon i guess.
We arrive in Battambang around 3 pm. As usual we have to deal with the hassle form the people touting the guesthouses. For once it was good though as we had no idea where to stay so we saw a picture of a nice one, cheap and a free lift there. Sold. We had a huge room which was nice as our past few had been tiny. Once again no hot water. You soon get use to no hot water and kind of appreciate it being cold as it's so hot here. Looking forward to a hot one some time soon.
We head out to check the town out and get a bite to lunch. There nothing here for tourists in the centre but the boat journey was what it was all about. As usual there's a huge influence of french architecture. We finally find some where to eat. Similar to kfc but not as tasty. All the other restaurants looked a bit to unhygienic for our liking. After a long day and early start we headed back for a power nap. After a well deserved nap we decided to head out in to town. Nick decided to stay in and rest so it was just myself, Neal and cobby who went out. All hungry we decided to find some where to eat. Believe it or not there was no where opened. What sort of town has no restuarants open???!!! Ok it will have to be a beer dinner. There was only one bar opened in town too so we headed there. It was just like the bar from Phoneix nights. Shocking. We got harrased by about 20 beer girls in there all wanting your service. This place was really creepy so we only stayed for one and went back to our hotel. Glad to be back safely we had a cornetto for dinner and then hit the sack. In bed by 9 pm must ve some sort of a record for a backpacker.
The next day we arranged a motorbike tour. We visited temples. One which was at the top of a mountain and the views from up there were breath taking. After that we visited some killing caves with still with body remains in there. These were from the kemah rouge era. After that we headed down this dirt track towards the bamboo train. Once we arrived there we had to build our own train.. Train builder, i'll put that on my cv i think. Ok it was fairly basic. It consisted of four wheels, a couple of axels a huge bamboo mat and an engine. Easy. We loaded on our motorbikes got a driver and set off flying down this track. These things really motor and are so unsafe it's un-real. Every bump you hit was painful and i didn't expect to make it back. What they failed to tell us is that other trains run on this track too and if you meet you have to get off and dismantle everything. Just our luck we hit one. Fortunately they got off there's but we helped. There was a family of about seven and by the looks of things they had done a years supply of shopping. So we lived to tell the story. That afternoon we was heading to bangkok so we headed back to the hotel, packed up and set off. Really looking forward to getting there. It's strange as last time there after three nights there i was looking forward to getting away and now i find my self looking forward to getting back.
Macdonalds here i come!!!!!!
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