Battered in Battambang

Our journey to Battambang was fairly uneventful - for a 5 1/2 hour trip it was comfortable enough, with a few stops on the way to stretch our legs and use the somewhat dubious facilities. We had a free pick up arranged with our hotel, and they'd asked us to get off on the western side of the river, but of course the bus stopped on the eastern side and everyone piled off, with us just sitting there wondering if we should stay on or not. Looking out of the window, there were numerous moto-taxis holding up signs for hotels, and then I spotted this guy right out our window holding up a sign that said 'George & Bec'.

We had our first experience on motos, luggage and all, and were relieved that staying on without holding the guy around the waist like a tool was actually quite easy, particularly considering I was holding a water bottle and a Pringles (known here as 'Mister Potato Crisps') container in one hand.

We were greeted at our hotel by the Australian owner, who turns out to be from a suburb near to us in Adelaide. Small world. Our room here is not quite up to the standards of our last hotel, but we've got a king size bed, surprisingly enough. In keeping with our usual tradition of missing out or misinterpreting things, it turns out that the 'super fast internet' is actually 'super fast wifi', and since we didn't bring our laptop (stupid! stupid!), we miss out on that too. So we're in an internet cafe with tolerable speeds, but there'll be no photo uploading until we get home, unfortunately.

After we'd settled into our hotel we headed out to get our bearings, which was hardly difficult since this is quite a small and very laid back town. Our first stop was a cafe reputedly owned by bible bashers (found this out afterwards), where we had an iced coffee/chocolate/caramel concoction, which was kind of weird but tasty. It even had coffee ice cubes in it.

After this we went to a rooftop bar in a hotel nearby for a few beers and watched the sun go down, before trying to find a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, which also runs Khmer cooking classes. Once again we missed out, as it was closed for the public holidays, which although only technically on Tuesday and Wednesday, seem to be liberally applied to the entire week. So we went to another small restaurant that had fairly good and very cheap meals, and I finally had a glass of red wine, which I've been missing (even though it was served cold).

After dinner we went back to our hotel and had several beers with the owner (out of Aussie stubbie holders - I had a Ballina RSL Club one) and listened to music and chatted. He's got a huge DVD collection, and later he put on a best of the Late Show CD where I finally learnt the origin of 'like a tiger' (doesn't make sense without hearing it though).

Finally we crashed out and had a very long sleep before going down for vegemite toast for breakfast - vegemite was good, bread was crap, but what can you do.

We then set out on an extended walk of the 'city limits', which took us a total of about an hour, including a stop for a drink on the way. We saw the statue at the entrance to the town, which is a giant god like creature called Dambong, holding some magic stick thing (the bat of Dambong, namesake of the town). We also walked past the governor's residence, a slightly shabby looking old French mansion which must have been very impressive once.

And that's kind of it for our sightseeing around here. We got more fruit shakes from a cafe, then went to a noodle place for a very tasty lunch before this update. Tomorrow we're planning to do a day tour out to the countryside and see some temples and some 'caves 'n' shit', as George says, with moto drivers who speak good English. And if the bloody place ever opens again we'll try to do the cooking class on the day after.

Nothing else to report really - it's two o'clock and we're out of things to do (if you ever come here, maybe only spend two nights in Battambang, not four). I'm sure you can guess where we'll be off to next.

Seeya.