Blogs from Battambang, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 15

We had heard that the boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang was very attractive but when we were told that it would entail 9 hours in an uncomfortable wooden longtail boat we opted to get a comfortable and relatively speedy bus that would only take 5 hours instead. When we arrived we felt like celebrities at a premier as the Battambang bus station staff had realised foreigners don't like being hassled by touts the second they get off a bus and had set up a barricade that the rather aggressive touts were camped behind, shouting and waving at us as we collected our bags from the hold. We had a shortlist of hotels we thought sounded ok in The Lonely Planet and when we saw a tout from one of them we went to speak ... read more

Both me and Lynn caught colds. I was a sorry sight, of course being far more ill than Lynn ever was or ever could be. I nearly had to send out an S.O.S to the St John's Ambulance Service to come stir my lemsips for me. But it is unpleasant having a cold in heat and humidity. It felt like and in fact it was getting hotter by the day, April being the hottest month in Cambodia. While I had this cold I just lay soaked in sweat under a fan turned up full blast. I'd hate to be seriously ill in a climate like this. The Cardamom mountains and the Koh Kong conservation corridor are as yet unspoilt. It seems a bit unusual to me when I think of the commercial selling out of the ... read more

Oh my, what a day….Just hum the Gilligan's Island theme song while you read. We spent eight hours on a boat between Siem Reap and Battambang. Eight hot, overcrowded hours with the most fascinating scenery along the Tonle Sap River. Small boats of all kinds - fishing boats, boats delivering goods and people, and even delivering motorcycles from one side of the river to the other in the absence of a bridge. Tiny fishing boats, no bigger than a small canoe; tiny children alone on long narrow boats; boats full of produce, or monks, or fishing nets. Our boat ticket was a printed piece of paper with a photograph of a sleek, high capacity cruising boat. This ticket was exchanged for a multicolored ticket with an even sexier-looking boat. This was exchanged for a ride on ... read more

I had emailed Som a couple of months ago asking him to arrange for a driver and car or van to take us to Battambang on Saturday, take him along with Rey and the kids to Boung Priene for the night and pick us up on Sunday morning to take us to Boung Priene for church. Rey’s dad is the pastor of New Life Church there. It is where I stayed while I was in Cambodia in 2004. There is no hotel in the village and the facilities there - well, let’s just say camping would be an upgrade. Hence, the hotel in Battambang. The plan was to then return us to our hotel Sunday evening and return Som and family to Phnom Penh where he would register for his next semester in school on Monday. ... read more

We have managed to reluctantly drag ourselves away from Siem Reap and are now in Battambang! Our last night in Siem Reap was spent having dinner at the Khmer Family Restaurant with Ara, our waitress from the Khmer Kitchen. The kids found it really hard to say goodbye to her and to the children from the street. After dinner we walked back to catch a tuk tuk and from out of the shadows of the market came Paul, our tuk tuk driver from the temples and the lake, with a gift of a traditional scarf for each of the children, such a gorgeous gesture which made leaving even more difficult. This reluctant feeling did not ease with the bus trip, hotel organization or arrival in Battambang. Booking bus tickets involved a bit of haggling, which ... read more