Friday: hello Battambang

Up at a relaxed hour, and said goodbye to the delightful staff from the Siem Reap Mango Rain Boutique Hotel. They genuinely were lovely people, albeit that their English was pretty stilted. We enjoyed their 6 bed family room (in effect our dormitory) their great pool and their breakfasts. We also enjoyed watching the crocodiles from our rooftop balcony (the hotel was next door to a crocodile farm) and their garden with fresh bananas, watermelon, other fruits and flowers which were presented to us for breakfast. We were pleased that the manager took us to a school as that added to the experience.

We got into the van driven by an employee of Nic's school pupils parent, were presented with 18 bottles of water by the hotel manager and hit the road to Battambang.

The drive to Battambang took about three hours. The road was in very good condition, long and straight, but the fact that there were only a few cars meant that we made good progress, as we rarely struggled to overtake bikes, motorbikes, tractors, rotorvators, lorries or other cars. On the way we saw a myriad of things being carried by motor bike, whole bigs, dozens of chickens, etc etc it really is amazing how much you can get onto a motorbike (families of 4 on a bike are now old hat to us!)

We arrived in Battambang around 1pm. Although we were offered the driver "for as long as we wanted" we felt it was too much to ask him to stay with us in Battambang and take us onto Phnomg Penn or beyond so we told him that he was free to go and gave him a generous tip. He too was a lovely guy but spoke very little English. He was a good driver and we felt safe with him (the majority of the time)

We checked into our hotel (Vimean Sovannaphoum) if you want to look it up. We have to adjacent rooms both with 3 beds so we have decided that one is an adult dorm, the other a child's room. Cleverly the rooms which are on the  first floor have a balcony on both sides as the sun when out is very hot!

Unbelievabley this hotel is adjacent to ........a crocodile fam so we can again see crocs from our balcony. There must be a lots in the area, market forces we guess. The hotel has a pool which fortunately is now functioning (it was closed for refurbishment last week) and we have agreed not to joke in the pool about "crocodile behind you!" - unless genuine.

From there we went to explore Battambang. Much quiter than Siem Reap as it has a tiny fraction of the footfall of tourists so far fewer places to eat etc.

We have decided to book a full day bike tour (40 km bike ride in the midday sun) rather than go out by minibus as the guidebook says this really is the way to see Cambodia. They can't fit us in on this tour till Sunday, so we may go out to a "killing field" site tomorrow.

Everyone we have met has been nice, and hassle is (so far) good natured and not over the top. It is hard to believe that this country lost 1.6 million through genocide in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and that it only became easy to visit Cambodia after the millennium.

Finished the day with a cooling swim before setting off for some street food by the river