Bada-bing, Battambang! (0km, transfer day)
Transfer day today, so up early ready for 6.30am departure. Alas, things didnt go quite as planned initially with the tickets and the boat - on getting to the harbour, they tried to palm us off with this shite bucket of a boat with plastic seats (for a 10hr journey, no way!) but Damian held firm so eventually this much better (relatively speaking) boat with padded seats turned up and we were on our way. Entertainingly, our boat was driven by this local kid who couldnt have been more than about 12yrs old - even more funny is that not one of us of the group made any comment about it! It was like "yeah, well, whatever!"!! The trip up the Tonle Sap through the mangrove swamps was fairly uneventful, except for me getting completely drenched not once, but TWICE from the wake of passing boats, setting Lenise off into fits of giggles! We went past some very poor floating villages where obviously the main activity and source of income was fishing. After about 4hrs of chugging along, we stopped briefly at a floating store where a few of our group bought some beer to drink on the top deck, then off again for the next 4hrs. The weather got worse and it started raining but, by that stage, I was already completely soaking so it really made very little difference!! But, by and large, it was quite a comfortable journey - I finished the book I'd bought the day before written by this woman who'd survived the rule of the Khmer Rouge as a child. Very compelling, extremely well written and very moving.

We arrived at our destination of Battambang ahead of schedule at around half three. Battambang is described as Cambodia's second capital - "a sleepy city full of faded colonial charm". We transferred to our hotel, The Golden Palace, which was very basic, so it was definitely back down to earth after the luxury of the past 3 nights!! I was quite tired so dithered with the idea of having a snooze but instead joined some of the others for a walk into town and have a look round. The map of hte town was completely useless (the drawing of the railway lines was especially liberal!) so of course we got lost but it was still interesting to walk through the town and observe daily life going on around us. Its not a tourist town here, so it was all very rough and raw and we obviously attracted our fair share of stares and giggles! Eventually, after much farting about and wrong turns, we managed to find a bar, the Gecko cafe, to sit and have a drink in. Whilst Daniella went and got her toenails done for $1, me, Clint and Tom took a Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel (via the cakeshop) (we drove a hard bargain and negotiated them down from $3 to $2!) as it had got dark and the chances of us not getting lost on the way back were pretty close to zero!! Dinner is at 8pm, so just time now for a quick shower and catch up on the news!!