Travel Log 12

I caught a bus to the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet where I was going to stay for the night and cross the border in the morning in order to catch the bus to Battambang. However when I got off the bus I got a tuk-tuk (the first on my trip) and said Great Hill Hotel, the tuk-tuk driver said yes yes and off he drove to the Cambodian border. Once here I quickly changed my plans to stay on the Cambodian side. So having read that I should avoid the agencies selling Visas at the crossing I proceeded through the immigration controls. On the other side a tout, after some time, found me a taxi to Battambang which would save me having to stay at the border town. The road from Poipet to Battambang is notoriously bad and the taxi ride was a little hair raising – travelling at 100km/h in a rightside drive car on right side drive roads past bikes with no lights, carts with reflectors made from CDs and motorbike accidents. Scary stuff however I arrived at my destination – The Royal Hotel where I am renting an amazing room for $10 (£6) which has two beds a bathroom, tv and a fridge. Tomorrow I’m going to get my Vietnamese visa and maybe go to the circus.

The circus was fun, the performance was by teenage kids and all proceeds  from the performance go to help disadvantaged children of Battambang.

The next day I hired a manual motorbike and headed out to the Khmer Rouge killing caves. The receptionist told me that it was easy to get there “just head down highway 10 for 30 minutes and you can’t miss it”. So off I headed onto what I thought was highway 10. This soon turned into a dirt track, thinking that this can’t be Highway 10 I turned back and went back to the hotel to make sure of the route. Of course it was the right road they had just neglected to tell me that highway 10 was actually  dirt track 10. So I headed back and had a lot of fun biking down the dirt track , getting dust in my face from all the passing cars and looking at the Cambodian countryside. Cambodia is incredibly flat.

At the killing caves I hired a 12 year old guide to hop on the back of the bike and take me up the hill. We had a nice little chat about school what he wanted to be in the future and his family, which he carried a picture of around with him to show the tourists.

I then biked to a peaceful temple of top of a hill. On the way back I passed a dog which had been hit in the road. I stopped to help it off the middle of the road so that it didn’t cause an accident. However the locals came out of the house and looked at me as though I had hit the dog. So I thought I should probably leave and get back to town.

The next day I took a bus to Siem Reap for the wonder of the Angkor temples.