We arrived in Battambang & looked round a few dodgy hotels before we found one that wasn't too bad then we gave Mr Sim a call, who some friends had suggested we get in touch with. We arranged for a motorbike tour for the next day. We went through some remote villages which was brilliant, all the kids wave at you as you go past & shout Hello or Goodbye or we even had I love you & I miss you from a few! We had to wear scarves over our nose & mouth as it was sooooo dusty, they call it Cambodian snow! It's bright red & everything at the side of the road is covered in it, when we got back it looked like we had had a really dodgy fake tan done as we were both orange! First we went to a working monastry where the monks pray & live. We were invited in & saw someone painting inside the temple. Mr Sim then took us up to a Monastry on a mountain (which was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge) we sat down at the top & he told us about his life. He has been through alot! His dad was shot by the Khmer Rouge & his family were taken into the forest to live. They were all separated into groups, old men, men, women & children. They all worked on farms or doing various jobs for the Khmer Rouge. All food had to be shared out & you couldn't eat anything that you grow, even if you were starving as you would be killed. It was really awful. We walked down the side of the mountain to a cave where people were excuted from the prison above. There was a hole at the top of the cave where people were struck over the head & there bodies fell to the bottom. Some of the bones skulls were still in the cave inside a glass case. Back at the bottom of the mountain we sat down & had dinner with a tourist policeman, all of the money from tourism goes to the government & not to the people that live there which is why alot of people still live in poverty there. Next we drove on to another monastry, this one had one massive tree with hundreds & hundreds of bats hanging from it. Apparently they stay here under the protection of the monks. They were all out in daylight & just on this one tree, it was bizarre! Mr Sim was really knowledgable about all the plant life, he showed us lemongrass & chillis & picked a tamarin for us to eat (which was interesting!). On the way back we took the "Bamboo Train". I imagined ths to be a tiny train made of bamboo & on bamboo tracks. What is was was metal tracks with a platform on wheels! We loaded two motorbikes onto it with one driver, Mr Sim & his assistant, me & Charlie. Apparently if you meet something coming the other way (as it is only one track) then whoever has the lightest "train" has to pick it up & move it off the tracks! We met about 4 things coming the other way, luckily 3 of them saw us coming a mile off so took theirs off before we got close to them so we didn;t have to stop but the first one we came across had loads of villagers coming back from the market with tons & tons of food. We were playing chicken basically & screeched to a holt fairly close to each other. I would say they were heavier but because of the motorbikes they took all their stuff off & moved to the side! We left the next day for Siem Reap by boat, it wasn't the most comfortable of rides but at least it was a change from buses. Some places the river was so narrow you got attacked by trees & bushes if you sat too close to the sides!