Kampot to Battambang

Hello from Battambang (or Battenberg as Rhiannon has been calling it much to Alex's annoyance!)

When we last wrote our blog we were going to see the performance at the Kampot Traditional Music School to celebrate their 20th anniversary and wow what a performance that was! We had already made friends with the lead tutor there, a beautifully smiley lady who was overjoyed to hear that Rhiannon worked in performance and even happier to hear that we are British as the founder of the school is an English lady. She explained that the ancient dance form was almost lost during the Khmer Rouge reign of tyranny which added much gravitas to the experience as it would have truly been a tragedy if this had happened. The dances we saw ranged from graceful slow movement to kinetic monkey dancing (please forgive us but it was unlike anything we have ever seen before and very hard to describe!) A mixture of dance, physical theatre and story telling through movement that made for a very authentic Cambodian night out!

The following day we booked ourselves on a tour to visit the old, "abandoned" hill station at Bokor originally built by the French during the 1920's. Unfortunately it is no longer that abandoned as there is a massive programme of development across the area leaving many of the surrounding forests without their native elephants, tigers and gibbons. We had a great tour guide who helped to put this in context of the modern Cambodia and we met some great fellow travellers! Later that evening and as part of the tour we took a lazy boat ride up the river to see the sun setting. After a drop off at one of the guest houses our boat captain pushed the boat off from the jetty using his punt and unfortunately he misjudged the gap somewhat resulting in him flailing his arms before landing with an almighty splash in the river! At this point Alex threw the camera at Rhiannon before dragging him back on board.... my hero! All was ok though and the only thing damaged was his pride.

Later that evening we visited the Rusty Keyhole (what a name for a restaurant!) and Alex joined with some of our new traveller friends in devouring 1.5 kg of the best ribs in Cambodia! Rhiannon had a baked potato with cheese and her smile grew bigger with each mouthful.... some things will never change! We all met up the following night for more food and beers on the other side of the river and talked long into the night, so long in fact that we were the last to leave. Now for many who have visited such places you will know that it is often customary to leave ones shoes at the entrance, which we did. When it came to leaving Rhiannon looked down to find her shoes had disappeared! Nooooooooooo!!!!! Her beloved Birkenstock which she has adored for some 5 years now were simply nowhere to be seen. As she began hunting for them she spotted an almost identical pair and realised that the owner of these shoes must have made a wee error and taken hers by mistake. Oh well, nothing to be done except to take hers and thank goodness she was also a size 5. So somewhere there is a lady walking in Rhiannon's shoes and she is now walking in hers (which are considerably newer so I cannot help but feel Rhiannon got the better deal!)

We then visited S21 and the killing fields in Phnom Penh which is a very thought provoking and harrowing experience. It definitely is a must when visiting Cambodia as it really goes a long way in helping to appreciate the culture and present climate of the country but it cannot be described as a "fun day out". For those who have visited these places you will know what we are talking about and for those who haven't I'm afraid it is not something we can describe as there are no words to do the horrors justice.

All in all Phnom Penh was a pretty hectic place so we were glad to arrive in Battambang, a quiet river side town where we are staying at "Here be Dragons Guest House" - Sarey it feels like this place is made for you with it's giant dragon painted on the wall! Our hosts Jen and Ferguson are awesome to say the least and they hand make the best sausages we have ever eaten!

Yesterday (Saturday) we had a varied day out starting with a ride on the local bamboo train. At this point we would like to say that the term "train" must be taken as a loose term as it was more a flat bamboo square balanced upon two metal axels. The train hurtles along at about 20 mph and with nothing to hold on toot is quite a ride, exhilarating to say the least!

Then we claimed up a small mountain to see the killing cave at the top. Another very harrowing place where 10,000 innocents tragically lost their lives.

During the descent made up of 300 steps we met several monkeys... one of which took a mild disliking to Alex and decided to chase him but Alex was too quick for him. When we reached the bottom we were taken by our friendly guide DJ to a cave known locally as the bat cave. When dusk came we waited and then came one of the most amazing things we have ever seen, a natural phenomena which simply blew us away. Millions upon millions of bats all moving in synch, a symbiotic stream moving in unison flooding out of the mouth of the cave. We stood there for roughly 15 minutes and yet more bats came but sadly no Christian Bale : (

Tomorrow we head further North to Siem Reap and to the great Anchor Wat but for now we are planning on making the most of Here be Dragons and our new friends who have offered us both jobs if we ever want to live in Cambodia... very tempting but Oz is still calling us!

Loves loves loves x x x