Battambang

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Hey everyone hope your all doing good and your enjoying our updates 😊

For the last few days we have been in Battambang, a small town in the north of Cambodia. We took a private taxi here which was nice as we were picked up at our hostel and we driven straight there with no random stops like when your on the buses. But our driver was NUTS!! He drove very fast and on both sides of the road plus he had not one, not two, not even three but FOUR mobile phones that all rang at one point or another haha he got us there in 2 hours when we had been told 3 so we didn't complain lol!!

We stayed at the Royal Hotel which was perfect, cheap, very central and clean and the staff were very friendly. The only downside (for Laura) was the marble floors on the stairs which she slipped and fell down onto and ended up with a HUGE black bruise on her arse hahaha

On arrival the tuk tuk drivers outside the hotel kept asking us to go to the circus, we didn't think it would be any good so we kept saying no. But after a quick walk around town we realised there was NOTHING else to do there so we went ahead to the circus with Dan and Helen and we were all so glad we did. The performance was fantastic, the kids were so talented. They told the story of a young girls life during the time of the Khmer Rouge through art, contemporary dance, acrobatics and music. They really should think of a better name than the circus though because the only resemblance was the tent it was on in. The performers are all local kids trained by professionals from Canada. Some of the children who have previously starred in the show have been given scholarships to a school for performing arts in Canada where many of the original Cirque De Soliel cast trained.

The following day the 4 of us set off for the day with a tuk tuk driver. The first stop was the Bamboo Train which is what this little town is famous for. The small train base is made from Bamboo, train wheels and it had a small motor on the back. We all climbed on and our driver took off, we were not ready for the speed the train got up to lol were pretty sure we hit 40mph at one point!! We rode on the train for about 20 mins and then you get off for a small rest were we met some lovely kids before we headed back again. The scenery was beautiful and it was brilliant seeing lots of local children running up to wave at us as we passed. We did have to slow down at some points when we met cows and goats in our way. Also if another bamboo train is coming the car with the least amount of people on it had to get off, take the train apart let the other car pass and then put the train back together and head off again!! It was pretty cool and we had a good laugh!

Later we visited some temples and then onto a bat cave, this was unbelieveable. Our tuk tuk driver took us to the edge of a cave and told us to watch and wait, we sat for over an hour thinking we had been scammed but then suddenly millions of bats began to fly out of the cave, they continued to fly out for over 1 hour. Our driver then drove us up the road where we had an amazing view of this swarm of bats flying across the skyline for miles it was amazing to see. We were all so glad we had waited. The driver was supposed to take us to a crocodile farm but as we had waited so long for the bats and it had gotten dark we thought he was heading home....but no he took us to this random house in the dark that had 400 crocodiles in lots of pens it was mental they were trying to sell us live chickens to feed to them!! They also had lots of baby ones in buckets all around their living area we all could not wait to leave!

We have had an amazing time here and although its a small town Battambang has lots of charm and enough to keep you occupied for a day or two. There were two nice restaurants we visited Gecko Cafe and Cafe Eden which both had really good food. The free cold water served in jam jars in Cafe Eden was a cool touch 😊

That's all for now chat soon everyone

love Laura & Ian

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