A wasted journey

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The trip to Battambang was a further confirmation of the direness of Cambodian transport. The "free pick-up from the guesthouse" turned out to mean a walk to the bus company's office, from where we had to grab a lift on another bus to the main bus station, wait there for 45 minutes, then get on the Battambang bus. Which promptly drove back to the bus company's office. Roughly 5.5 hours of non-aircon existence followed, with a miniature dust storm coming through the open windows. The first two thirds of the ride were essentially on a dirt track that just happened to be the width of a road. Potholes and ruts punctuated the surface, leading to slow, frustrating, uncomfortable progress.

Arrival in Battambang was marked by a cavalry of astonishingly persistent motorbike-mounted accommodation touts. A couple of them followed us around the town as we hunted for a guesthouse, ignoring our statements that we didn't need any help, and I was this close to my first obscenity-laced outburst of the trip.

When removing my rucksack from the coach luggage bay, I discovered a flimsy cage of parrots on top of it. A couple of the wretched birds had clearly been crushed by the poorly-designed structure of the cage. Several had also decided to crap on my rucksack.

The main reason for coming to Battambang was because the traveller grapevine had said it was possible to get a Vietnamese visa here in about 20 minutes, versus several days in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately that turned out to be untrue, at least at this point in time. Though there could possibly have been a linguistic misunderstanding as to the reason, it appeared as though visas could not be issued in Battambang for at least a week due to them waiting for some forms to come through from Hanoi.

The main side-effect of this, other than a wasted trip, was that LA Woman and I would go our separate ways sooner than expected - she to Thailand for a beauty contest and Thai New Year, me to Phnom Penh and then to south Vietnam (I hadn't qualified for the beauty contest). We made plans to meet up in Hanoi in mid-April, but it was hard to steel myself for a return to travelling without companionship.

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Photos

Pop Cowboy? Mood in love??
And it's only shampoo ...

Hoarding advertising a cake shop
Obviously