Battambang

We caught the 8:30 bus from Siem Reap to Battambang and one of our roommates at Siem Reap hostel, Fiona, decided at the last minute to come along as well. We then met Brenda at the end of the bus ride and we all decided to stick together.  It was a crazy mob scene outside the bus even before we got our bags.  People with signs for hotels and tuk tuks.  Finally all four of us got a tuk tuk and just started driving to look at hotels and guesthouses.  We ended up choosing Lux guesthouse, with rooms on the fourth floor, no elevator.  We all went out to eat lunch and walked around until we found a place that looked good, The Smokin Pot, where we met an awesome Cambodian who was an ex-tuk-tuk driver.
Chatted with him about Cambodian life (will probably post a separate post about it).

For dinner Andy and I walked to a vegetarian restaurant only to find out it closed early in the day.  Walked around and found a great coffee shop with western and khmer food.  Had Khmer noodles with vegetables, springs rolls, 2 beers, and a brownie all for $3.75. Told Fiona and Brenda about it when we got back and they ended up going there for dinner as well.  We all bought overnight bus tickets to Phnom Penh for the following evening and planned to get another bus to Sihanoukville when we arrived in Phnom Penh.

In the morning we all got ready by nine, checked out of hotel but stored our bags there. The owner gave us each a scarf to keep and a straw hat to borrow.  Went out to breakfast around the corner, "toast" (baguette) with nutella for me and fruit with yogurt and muesli for Andy. Everyone else fruit and yogurt and museli.  Found tuk tuk driver from day before, told him what we wanted to see and he took us on a tour of the countryside.

1st: bamboo railway.  On the way we stopped at a peace memorial made of machine guns and a huge statue of this guy holding a stick which had to do with the origin of Battambang city.

Bamboo railway was crazy, really fast, like a rollercoaster.  If we met someone going the other way one of the trains would disassmble, let the other one pass, then reassemble.

Stopped at the other end at a village where we stayed in one shop and bought drinks from the owner.  3 little girls, probably 4-7 years old made us palm bracelets, played a counting game with rocks with us and took us to see the brick factory.  We played in a big circular room, spun the girls around and generally had fun playing.  But then at the end the woman told the girls to ask for money (we didn't see this part because our little girl kept wanting to play around the bricks but Fiona and Brenda saw it).  Oh well.

Next up: the winery.  Cambodia's only winery.  Bought 2 "tastes" of red wine and 2 of brandy and we all shared. The brandy was really strong and hard to drink.  The wine was very unusual, didn't really taste like wine at all but none of us could place what it tasted like.  Sat around and chatted with our tuk tuk driver.

On the way to some mountain (our final destination) we stopped at a peanut farm and saw how peanuts grow then went across the street to where they were sorting the peanuts from the husks and we each got a handful of raw fresh peanuts each.  Tasted like peas a little bit.  Went to mountain and walked up to see the killing caves and various buddhist temples.  The memorial in the killing cave was an ornate glass box full of skulls and human bones from victims of the Khmer Rouge who had been bludgeoned to death and thrown down the cave.

The tuk tuk driver set us up with a boy to be our guide but he didn't speak any english, just showed us where to walk.  We didn't make it to top where another pagoda stands because we didn't want to miss the bats coming out of a cave (the main reason for coming to this mountain). So we walked down tons of steps to bottom where cave with the bats was located (also known as the bat cave).  Several other small groups of tourists showed up as well.  Millions of bats flew out of the cave for a long time.  We stayed for only 10 or 20 minutes but they were still leaving when we left.

Went back to the hotel to hang out until our overnight bus left for Sihanoukville.