Possibly the best day ever...

Trip Start Jun 26, 2008

Trip End Ongoing

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Where I stayed

chhaya hotel

(Battambang hotels)

Flag of Cambodia Battambang, Cambodia
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Another early start for breakfact back at the White Rose for bread and jam and awesome fruit shakes they do here, we found Amy and Matilda in the exact same spot we had left them the night before. I was now rested and excited about what we were going to do that day. I didn't finish the bread and one of the many bagging families pointed in its direction. I gace the remaining bread to the family which they appeared grateful. The little boy (about 2yo) eventually came back on his own to collect the rest of the jam. 3 pieces of bread and his treasured yellow plastic sword saw confusion in which he should carry. The sword susequently got kicked along as he ate.

The four of us met up with a canadian girl at the cookery class and the instructor and owner of the 'smokin pot' restaurant, the double meaning deliberate im sure, as his english was excellant and the menu for the restuarant also sprinkled with other english humour

Bats in the belfry

. Firstly a trip to the local market to buy the ingredients for our dishes which was an experience in itself. Heaps of food for sale sit on the ground under makeshift cover from the sun, covered in flies. People of cambodia it seems will eat just about anything. The fish for kims main dish could not have been any fresher as the live fish was beaten to death and de-scaled and gutted right in front of us. The cookery class was a blast, people taking the piss like we had known everyone for years. A beer with the delicious lunch we had prepared rounded off the morning.

Amy and one of the guys (luke) she had met on the boat were going to the Killing Caves in the afternoon. This was where the Khymer rouge had killied thousands of the opposition by standing them over the cave and chopping the backs of their heads off, letting the bodies fall and fill the caves below. All this between 1975-1979. An eerie and moving place to visit. Getting there however was challenging as it was 12 miles away. A tuktuk was going to cost US$25 and the horrendous road would have made for an exhausting an painful experience. We eventually decided on renting a moto each. Notoriously dangerous on a potholed road in a country with no dicernible road rules. I had never riden a motorbike of any kind before so the experince was daunting esp when i got on it and instantly crashed into the nearest curb and fell off

Cooking class

. However, i am a quick learner and got back on and pulled out in to the haphazard traffic with everyone else. The road was about 10x worse than the one from poipet with extreme potholes and brdges missing complete beams. The scenery was stunning tho and the riding on the open road with new found friends was exciting. A rest break about 6 miles in saw my moped stall. Multiple efforts by me in the searing heat did not work and i began to panic - a friendly local offered to help and kick started it first time, much to my embarrasment.

Arriving at the temple at the bottom of the mountain and leaving our bikes with some locals who said the would take care of them for a fee, before trying to fleece us for an entrance fee to a free temple. With no guide we made our very steep way to the top via views over the flat lands and monkeys in the trees. We couldn't find the cave tho, only an monastery witha lone monk who spoke excellent english at the top. he took us to the caves where we were the conly people to be visiting. You could feel the atmosphere of the place with pictorial descriptions of what had happened there just a few decades ago - within my lifetime. One of the caves converted to a makeshift temple with the remains of some of the victims on graphic display.

We gt down pretty quickly after thhis, thanking the monk for his help. We knew it would be getting dark within the hour and we had a long ride back. With heighened confidence we shot back across the rough road to battambang with time to spare. Dinner at the smokin pot with about 8 people, most of which were travelling in pairs or by themselves and bed after saying a fond farewell. All in all one of the most enjoyable days i can remember. The boat to Siam Reap at 6am awaits...