Battangbang (Jan 2008)

---

We left Phnom Penh to go to Battambang on the bus and went to a lovely hotel called the Royal Hotel. Everyone is really friendly in Cambodia and the guys in the hotel were lovely. Battambang was much less touristy then Phnom Penh and much less shouts of "tuk tuk" everywhere!

Battambang is a riverside town but there isn't much to do in the centre itself, you have to get out of the town and go explore the nearby villages.

Si had arranged for me, Chris and Shannon (an aussie girl we had met in Phnom Penh) to have a tour on the back of motos for the day to go and visit the temples and villages. It was such a fun day and we really enjoyed riding around looking at the villages the best. The drivers were really good guides and made us laugh with all the Englsih sayings they had picked up.... The roads were so dusty and we ended up looking like we had done a really bad fake tan job because our bodies were covered in bright orange dust!

We went to see some temples and one that was used by the Khmer Rouge as a prison and the caves that the prisoners were dropped into to kill and not waste bullets on. The views at the top of the temples over the countryside were beautiful. The children in the village were so so cute and friendly (I took way more pictures of them than anything else!) and they are so happy and never seem to cry. They are officially the cutest children I have ever seen!

We has the best shakes in the White Rose in Battambang, there were prob about 100 different fruit shakes, so fresh and lovely!

---