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Blogs from Battambang, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 19
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November 22nd 2006
Most people leave Siam Reap bound for Bangkok and to be honest so would we have done, but although stories of 18 hour journeys and over turned buses seem to tick the boxes of some travellers, nearly 3 months into our adventure and we still find the A to B element boring and slightly stressfull, so if an alternative to break up a journey presents itself then we are tempted to take it. We hadn't had a boat trip since Laos and had even started to look back on that particular adventure with some affection, so a 4 hour boat trip to Battambang would allow us to take in the sights of Cambodia's second city and give us an easier onward journey to the Thai border. As well as all this neither of us were in ... read more
November 21st 2006
Well we have arrived in our second city in cambodia by boat. It is a huge difference from the first. The first city had so many beggars and was very tourist orientated. Battambang is the complete opposite. Because there are no tourists they are no beggars. When we arrived in the city we found 2 friendly moto drivers that could speak very good english. We hired them for the next 2 afternoons of exploring the city. We first went and explored all the surrounding villages and the country side. We went to see rice paper being made, oyster mushroom farm, fish paste factory and the killing fields of Batambang. The killing field were very sad. There was a bunch of carvings of stone that showed the different ways that the khmer rouge tortured the people. When ... read more
November 21st 2006
We left Seam Reap 1 day early. We originally planned a 3 day tour through the Angkor temples but quickly realized the 3rd day, there wasn't much our driver had planned for us. So why pay the $10. We took a very scenic 5 hour boat ride to Cambodia's 2nd largest city, Battambang. The first few hours we went through what looked like a flooded forest. Cambodia is very flat and floods every year for the rainy season. It looked strange to see that we were on a giant lake but floating past giant trees. Floating by us were villages. There were all kinds of these things on the way, Villages with literally landless people. They take boats to the floating school, floating general store etc. There food consists of mainly fish among other things....obviously! I ... read more
November 15th 2006
Battambang has a garlic - I mean Gallic - feel to it, as it is made up of French colonial buildings set along a riverside. Another temple strewn landscape, we decided to visit only one of them, and along with our drivers, we mounted our motos - our only real transport option here - with trepidation. We wore helmets, which was a rare sight in Camodia considering the lack of safety-consciousness regarding the roads. Along the way we saw children as young as eight or nine riding around on motorbikes, and they give India a run for its money, for the 'number of people that can be crammed onto a vehicle' award. Riding on the moto was easy, you just had to relax! (despite the rocky, dusty roadways and weaving motos). We arrived, windswept and dusty, ... read more
October 25th 2006
Well at last I've arrived in Asia, after all that time of easy backpacking in Australia and New Zealand. I flew into Bangkok about a few weeks ago, arriving late at night at the new airport so we decided to avoid having to head into an unknown city in the middle of the night and slept at the airport instead which wasn't all that bad. It was odd to be in a completely different place though but to be in such a sterile place as all airports are. It wasn't until the next morning when we left for the hotel that the full extent of Bangkok hit. Well to some degree anyway, Sophie had booked us a couple of nights at the Bangkok Marriot as my birthday present. So we headed there for a much needed ... read more
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October 25th 2006
We finally left Australia about two weeks ago after spending the last few nights with Tom's brother in Sydney. We had a fairly painless flight to Bangkok and arrived in the middle of the night. We didnt really want to venture into Bangkok for one night that late so spent a few suprisingly comfortable hours sleeping in the airport. We then got a taxi out to the marriott hotel, where my amazing sister had arranged for us to stay for a few days of luxery, which it really was, air conditioning, the biggest softest bed i have ever slept in, a gorgeous swimming pool for some night time swimming, a bath and greatest of all, a hairdryer. We spent the next two days exploring Bangkok, seeing the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, which is stunning ... read more
September 15th 2006
hey everyone, im back to slow internet and no internet for the next couple of days so might be a while till i get some pics up again and updates may not happen for a couple days. But i have been upto a bit like yesterday i did sunrise at angkor wat which was really cool despite the clouds, i felt like a big geek with my headlamp but you really couldn't see anything for a while without it. So we explored angkor wat for a while then went to the land mine museum which was really good to go see, a local runs the place and decommisions mines with just a stick and a screw driver no metal detector no nothing, he also has adopted 11 boys who are all land mine victims and gets ... read more
September 7th 2006
Today we we got out of bed at another ungodly hour (5.30 am....don't these people know I'm on holidays!!), and met a bus which would take us on a 6 hour boat ride from Siem Riap to Battambang. Now while that sounds fairly shite, I can say that despite the heat and the length of the trip it wasn't too bad. I found it a fairly surreal experience to be sitting on the floor of the boat, watching houses in the middle of nowhere in the water on stilts, and having "recapturing the vibe" by Hilltops blaring through my iPod. Also I can highly recommend Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre...read half on the plane over, and half on the boat...great book!!! Siem Riap is the second largest city after Phnom Pehn (the capital) and Battambang ... read more
September 7th 2006
We have arrived safely this afternoon to wonderful ol' Battambang (sounds sort of Aboriginal if you say it fast enough) in an effort to escape the terrors of Siem Reap (albeit exciting as they were) we used the excuse that Mont needed to see the "real" country side of Cambodia. Cristopher had headed off the day earlier and we traced his footsteps in boarding the 6 hour boat trip (felt a lot more like a hundred) that passed through a number of floating villages and the infamous floating forest. The whole scene was set on a wide lake, gradually turning into a slow moving river with tiny chanels between the corriders of forest that would whip your face as you chugged through. There were a few moments where boats would come head to head and it ... read more
August 19th 2006
So we crossed into Cambodia just one week ago and the experience so far has been mind blowing. After a relaxing month on the beautiful Thai islands of Ko Tao and Ko Chang we set off to the border crossing at Hat Lek (Thailand) and Koh Kong (Cambodia). We were soon far from the slick "merry-go-round" of Thailands backpacker trail and immersed in the madness of Cambodia. Don't get me wrong, the Thai people were lovely, but we found it a struggle to get to know some local Thai people as most we met were seriously worn out talking to well fed Europeans. Having only experienced the hugely popular southern islands this is perhaps unsurprising and we hope for better things when we return to explore the North of Thailand in a few weeks. As I ... read more
