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Published: July 29th 2006
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Battambang main road
Nice not to get hassled. Give it a few more years. So the time came to leave Phnom Penh! We have found this bustling city to be very likeable and were a little sad when the time came to leave.
Another thing to take note is that Phnom Penh is where all the transport to Vietnam leaves from, so by leaving here means the chances of us getting to our 11th country is getting slimmer. We are unsure as whether we would have enough energy and time as to really appreciate it to the max???
Our bus to Battambang was again HOT!! so much for the air-con buses eh? It eventually left the city after hanging around the bus station waiting for more passengers about 20 minutes late.
On the bus, I, Andy started to think just how many buses we have been on in the last 11 months?? It made me then think how many more I could actually handle? We drove through lot's of nice villages and saw more of the Cambodian countryside, it's so flat with just the odd hill jutting out of the rain sodden rice fields, that are always busy with Buffalo and farmers. Another thing I want to tell you all about the
buses here is that, unlike at home on a bus where you can sit back and relax, here the drivers are constantly blasting away at their horns to warn of our oncoming speeding bus. Also on board they play Cambodian movies and Karaoke videos that are on full blast. On this journey we had the same awful, screaming movie as the bus from Kratie- Phnom Penh. No music can drown out these two noises at all!
Even after all this time we come across new scams and challenges and we met another on on this bus. I am always trying to judge how close to our final destination we are, but here we suddenly stopped. Where? We must be close to Battambang!
A guy jumped on board "Ok all the people for Battambang, you HAVE to get off here, the bus goes on to Sisaphon" he said.
I had seen on the bus that it actually said Battambang in the front window.
We got off with 3 or so other white westerners. Where were we? I asked one of the other travellers if he thought we were in town. He was unsure?
As we looked around, disorientated
we noticed the guy that came onboard had a plaque for a hotel called the 'Chhaya' and a dozen or so moto-taxis. He said town was a taxi ride away. He tried his hardest to promote his hotel, but as usual we told him we were already booked into one called the 'Royal' (not true) Ok so our next job was to negotiate a ride into town and as usual the touts, or in this case the one guy, had to stick his nose in while we tried to get ourselves a good price. He was asking 1.50$ for 2 we got it for a 1 dollar to the 'Royal' so we think we did ok!
Did the bikes take us straight to the 'Royal'? DID THEY ECK! They took us to his hotel the 'Chhaya', it's crazy. If at home you wanted a taxi to the local pub and they took you to one a mile away you would wonder what was happening! But here it just seems normal. The people at the hotel were desperate for us to have a look and I may have done, but Melissa stayed strong despite their plea's telling us that the
'Royal' was expensive. So we eventually got to the 'Royal', it was nice and with a rooftop restaurant. AGAIN THE TOUTS FAILED, WHEN WILL THEY LEARN? We later found out that the hotel pays the bus companies to drop the tourists off out of town so they can tout you to their hotel. AND the bus does stop in town!!!!
Our reason for coming to Battambang, so Melissa told me was to see the sights away from the town, which are only accessable by hiring a moto for the day. So thats what we did! The same day we arrived, we booked a driver, called Sam, who spoke crazy English. He could speak Cockney, Scottish, Geordie etc and seemed like a nice guy.
When we booked we asked the hotel how much? They told us 9$ each for a driver each. When we asked Sam direct he told us 8$ each. We asked them both if we could just get one bike to share, but the both had their well rehearsed answers ready. "It is the wet season, the roads are too bad to have two passengers on one bike" YEAH AS IF we constantly see F.O.Bs and
B.O.Bs about ( Family On Bike) and ( Babies On Bikes) so we knew they were lying. Anyway, sorry for whaffling on!! We got him on his own for 12$
Again, as with Kratie, the town of Battambang was described in the Lonely Planet and it quoted this " An elegant riverside town, sheltering the best-preserved French architecture in the country". We have also read other peoples blogs who seem to fancy themselves as travel writers who spout off some real rubbish. YA WHAT????? The town was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Phnom Penh, but the buildings are dirty and old with nothing of interest for travellers in town.
Read the next blog for what happened on our daytrip out to the Cambodian countryside.
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