Spring Park Hotel Battambang

... recommended in our guidebook), so when I finally located the tout pushing the Royal, we accepted a tuk-tuk ride from him. The Royal was only a few blocks away from the bus station, so minutes later we had secured ourselves a decent (though hardly royal) room for $6 a night.<br><br>The next day we arranged to have a tuk-tuk driver show us around the countryside. On our eight-hour tour, we saw the only vineyard in Cambodia, a hill ...

... then descended the steps back to my moto. Baring in mind the walk was a good 45mins, you can imagine how many steps there were. Stopped a few times to 'take a photo of the view" then carried on. We set off to another temple. Not much to say about this one. It was a ruin, there were 378 steps up to it and back down again, there was a cat there and I ate 2 bananas. <br><br>Now for the best part of my day, the bamboo train. This was hilarious and so much fun ...

... felt like were seeing real Cambodia. We went to Phnom Sampeau a striking hill that has a lot of caves. The eerie caves were used as slaughter chambers by the Khmer Rouge and still contain the skeleton remains of its victims. We got a bit lost trying to find these caves and in the end we gave up after seeing two of them and being caught in a heavy rain shower. After the killing caves we had ...

... smile at me - I imagine myself on the tube grinning at people like an idiot.<br><br>On the last 2 days we learnt more about refuse collection in Cambodia, the smell of bins had been increasing and the pile of rubbish outside the Bus Stop had been decomposing in the sun for 3 days. On the morning of our check-out a dustbin lorry came and took it away, but not before we'd gagged our way through breakfast. I'm not sure I could ever get used to that smell.<br> <br>We weren't ...

... juste pour vous donner un idee. tout est vraiment decriss, et il vive dans pire que des chiottes, car au moins, des chiottes, ca a une porte. donc des vieilles cabane tout croche, mais avec de beau paysage. on aurait pris 1 heure de la ride pour voir le paysage, mais 7, cetait un [peu trop. finalement, on arrive en vie. hier, on sest promene dans la ville ici. cest tres industriel et il y a pas grand chose a voire. cependant, juste pour voir les gens ici faire du workout ...

... was one of their first Asian meal experiences. Brilliant! After breakfast we got a tuc-tuc out to the outskirts of the town to the old railway tracks. In the olden days, or before the war there was a railway line which ran all the way from the Thai border to the Vietnamese and to the south coast, the upkeeping of national railways slipped in the priority list somewhat in the last 30 years and now the only vehicles to ply these routes are heavy goods trains which move at ...

... garage with fish lying on a concrete floor. This stuff was grey and gross and I've eaten it. Some times it's best not to know. Then we went to where rice noodles are made, which is with rice flour in a paste pushed through a "sieve" and boiled. Then it was off to see bamboo sticky rice being made. This involves cooking ...

... bamboo train" ride, and then to climb up two diffrent mountains (OK, I exaggerate, "hills") to see some temples in 35 degree heat in the middle of the day!!! The stes were extremely busy with locals as it was the Khmer New Year - but we got a good viewing of the countryside and how the locals wnjoy their New Year. (At one of the sites, following her fame on local Bolivian radio ... ... Lindsey was interviewed for local Cambodian FM radio!)

... nik composing the updates thinking has she finished yet but I now realise it ain't that easy! <br><br><br> Anyway We did arrive at our destination except there was no room at the inn through some coercion of a local we checked in to a nearby hotel to be told 'No smoking and No Drugging' I think they didn't like the look of Nik <br>- I could be wrong! <br><br><br>Now for the local cuisine our bible told us to try the local ...

Well, 20 people all wanting breakfast early at once taxed the kitchen staff severely, and we left the motel a few minutes late at 6:45 on a bus down to the ferry. Road impossibly narrow for the bus, and often we squeezed between stalls with only inches to spare. On to the ferry which was small, but not an ancient wooden one which I was expecting. Only broke down once going across ...