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Published: January 15th 2007
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Jessi:
so we arrived in the smaller city of Battambang two days ago. Mission of a bus ride but was worth it.
On the first night we made the trek to this lovely riverside bar thing. only westerners there but its where angelina jolie went last time she was in cambodia so it was obviously a must. sadly no angelina but we met a young english girl and an old dutch man and actually stayed till closing! but far the scariest part about this town was the lack of tuk-tuks! our 'free hotel pick up' was the two of us on the back of a motor bike! so that's 3 people, our 2 travel packs and two day packs on the back of one scooter weaving in and out of all the other bikes on dirt roads! living on the edge or what!!! darc dealt with it fairly well, i had serious doubts about the future of my existence on this earth.
Darcie:
We had to start this day off early as we had decided to do a cooking class in Cambodian Food at a place called the smoking pot restaurant. I was in a crazy mood on this
Meat at the market
Spot the pig head!! particular morning, i think i must have had some particularly random dreams as I kept breaking into tears over nothing AT ALL! Jess would start laughing at me (i would try to laugh as well as it was actually quite funny), so then i would cry even more... so so weird - reminded me of ellie and her random crying! The cooking class started off with a trip to the markets, which was fantastic, absolutely disgusting and very stinky. People eating cockroaches, jumping fish, pigs heads (without bodies), beggars, fish paste, people scaling fish with a huge, blunt knife, chickens blood, mini chickens being plucked, turtles being cooked... so great when you are about to cook food from this market! Jess and I made the execuctive decision to eat from a vegetarian selection today... The course went for nearly 5 hours, it was just great! You can view our culinary delights if you wish!
We learnt a heap about Battambang *the town we are in* from our chef - so so weird... so we went to book a boat to another town, they had it advertised... but apparently, after we had told them which guesthouse we were staying at... there
were no boats, or buses... nothing. We had no idea why, but the place we are staying bashes up other motobike drivers and bus companies if they take their tourists... they have this whole control basically over all the towns tourism and stalk their guests until they give in and ride their motos (but not jess and i, oh no... we went out the back exit, sneaky!)
Jessi:
After walking to the other side of the town we actually found a tuk-tuk (so we wouldnt risk our lives) and so went for a drive 18km out of town to this temple. with the state of these roads, 18km in a tuk-tuk was a very bumpy 1hr drive. we had this funny as boy driving us. the roads were extremely dusty and we could see he was having trouble seeing the road through all the dust so being the accommodating person i am i offered him my sunglasses (after darcie told me i should). for those who didn't see my new sunglasses before i left they're really big ones. and they're pink. without even blinking he grabbed them and said thanks and wore them the whole way there and
view from the temple on the hill
But thats not THE temple in the photo, its just a mini one back. they took up half his face, he was so cute! so anyhoo we walked up this big mountain thing and on the way stopped at a killing cave where more Cambodians were killed by the khmer rouge. there was a box of bones. not as full on as killing caves but disturbing all same. at the top was this nice temple thing and some monkeys! it was so strange tho, cos lonely planet makes it sound like a really popular tourist spot but the trek up was through all these little buddhist monestry things. it was so odd, everyone stared at us like we weren't supposed to be there but when you smiled they smiled back and said hello. we met some lovely young monks at the top and they walked us the whole way down the thousands of stairs whilst practicing their English with us. For the second time that day, we were invited back the the monks pagoda with them. we thanked them for the lovely offer but gracefully declined...
Darc:
So... it is now the 15th and today we spent a whopping 9 hours on a boat, that went i think a total of 200
Three monks on a hill
who like to practice english kms.... to Siem Reap (the town which is at Angkor Wat). The first two hours were fantasic, so much to look at, whole villages living in the river in their houses which floated... schools, shops, temples, even churches! It was great to see, but just not sure if 9 hours was necessary! Our chef from the day before, let us in on a little scam that was going on when tourists arrived in Siem Reap... so we decided to use our sneakiness and test it out... when u arrive at the boat station there are all these drivers with guestnames on their peices of paper - one was shouting out "Darcie... Merah.... Darcie...Merah" .... yes we thought we were funny, so so funny! When we left Battambang and they randomly asked us our names, we told them Darcie and Sarah. So what happens is they sell your name to touts and when you arrive you think that u have booked a room (then forgotten perhaps?) and they get your buisness - great idea until sneaky us come along, as our hotel name was booked under Jessi so there was no tricking us. Oh no! So now Jess is known as
a house in the river...
this is one that is expecting the river to be much higher than it is... Jeffi, Sarah and Merah... me, well everybody just seems to forget my name and remember the blondes... =)
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mitch
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just thought i'd drop a line and say you 2 ARE making a few people jealous.looks and sounds great darc(and jess or sarah or marah)am looking forward to further exploits,adios