Blogs from Battambang, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 13

Tonight is our second night in Battambang (pronounced bat-am-bong). It's a small town fairly and doesn't see too many tourists. We took the public bus here yesterday. It was about a 6 hour ride from Phnom Phen. The ride was okay...and we got to watch super cheesy Chinese Kung-Fu movies dubbed over in Khmer. After we arrived and checked-in we set out for lunch. We went to a local restaurant; the food and fruit shakes were so good. Back at our hotel we were picked up by moto-taxi drivers and we set off for a countryside tour. First we stopped in a small village where they make rice paper wrappers. After that we headed to a village where they make fish paste. Yeah, it smells as good as it sounds... The fermented fish is ground up ... read more

Hey, As I mentioned in my previous blog we left Siem Reap by boat to Battambang in the north of Cambodia. We were told that most boats weren't running because the water level was so low and it would take you ages to get there and also cost 3 times the price of the bus. However, the comments about the scenery totally reversed all the negative comments so we went for it and found a boat that would take use there. It wasn't quite the boat I was expecting, we sat on hard wooden benchs on a very small boat and was slightly crammed in when all the loacals joined us when we went past the floating villages. I don't know how the driver knew which one to stop at but he got it right everytime. ... read more

The rest of Battambang was uneventful and I gadly said goodbye to the dusty town. I was ready to put my pack down for a bit and catch up with everyone back at the flat. I paid extra for the faster bus back to PP. Unfortunately, it turned out that my bus stopped seven million times before we arrived in PP 6 hours later. I was sick to death of being on a bus and as soon as I strolled through the school gate I felt like I was 'home'. It was a wonderful feeling and when I walked through the school the reception the children gave me brought a tear to my eye. I celebrated my homecoming with Vegemite on cruskits for lunch. The day was not over, I still had to say goodbye to ... read more

Confusion Yes, I´m afraid that its true. The old story of checking and double checking again every fact in Asia caught us at last. In the last Blog I mentioned that minibuses to the Cambodia border left 3 times a day from just up the road from the Guesthouse we were in. We went up and checked again there and also with other members of the guesthouse staff and the consensus was that there was indeed one at 0830 or 0900, the other 2 times were perhaps unreliable. We arrived at 0815 to be sure of getting a seat, but this was not necessary as nobody else arrived until nearer 0900 and then just to get us into Cambodia mode the driver of the first van to arrive opened all his doors and cranked up the ... read more

À partir de Siem Reap nous avons décidé d’aller vers Battambang en bateau. Une navigation de 8 heures à travers plusieurs villages flottant. Nous avons été surpris, encore une fois, de la pauvreté des habitants des villages flottants. Voici en photos notre périple à bord de cette petite embarcation plutôt inconfortable dû aux nombreux touristes en plus de la chaleur écrasante de 40 degrés. C’est ici que ce termine notre fabuleux voyage au Cambodge. Et c’est avec beaucoup de tristesse que nous y laissons un peuple d’une très grande gentillesse que nous n’oublierons jamais. Alors, c’est vraiment avec un pincement au cœur que ce termine cette complicité entre eux et nous. Some Li Ail ! Au dernier blog, nous vous avions informé que nous étions de court passage en Thaïlande pour prendre un avion vers le ... read more