Battam Bang (pronounced Battam Bong) is a place that for some reason has been lost from the tourist trail and wandering round this town, Cambodia's second largest, it is easy feel isolated completely from the Western world and tourism. For the start, the journey to get here from Siem Reap was an adventure in itself. We chose the mode of 'speed' boat. We chose wisely. 7 hours sitting on the roof of a narrow boat (not of the canal variety - faster and more open and slighty wider, maybe longer too) firstly leaving a floating village at the top of the Tongse La lake, across the top and straight to a river connecting to BattamBang. The lake was about as full as it would get from the rains so the trip was more like navigating over flooded fields dodging submerged trees than just your standard, average lake. Then diving off the lake onto a river of sorts. Again the edges were hardly what I would call defined. The the driver decided to embark on a series of 'shortcuts.' They were barely wide enough for the boat. On the roof I was slapped repeatedly by branches and in the proccess despositing some interestingly coloured spiders, preying mantis' etc. Not quite my idea of fun and ended up standing for a lot of the journey as they all seemed to gravitate toward me.

Having survived the journey, Battambangbong is a fairly quiet place early to bed. Even Angolina Jolie's (supposed) favourite drinking haunt whilst filming Lara Croft shut at 11pm and even before that quiet would be an understatement! Anyway, the highlight of this place has to be the bamboo trains the locals have invented. Using the railways they have made their own 'trains' consisting of a wooden frame sat upon a couple of small axels and a bamboo flooring. Powered by little more than a lawnmower engine they use them to transport goods and people locally and of course any tourist that wants to try their luck riding one and avoiding the real trains! They are suprisingly quick accentuated by the fact you are sat a few inches from the tracks which also are in desparate need of maintenance. Something even rail track would be ashamed of there were staggered gaps of up to 2" between adjoing lengths of rail created by either corroded ends or just blatant poor workmanship. That's not to mention the 'curvi-linear' nature of the whole thing - all making for a noisy, buttock clenching (and bruising), bonkors, white-knuckled ride!

My other excursion around here was on the back of a moto (scooter taxi as any other form of local transport doesn't exist - at least for barang) to a temple perched on the side of a lime cliff. Other than being just another temple it was interesting to see, from a geeky point of view, the rather measly pad 'foundations' supporting it. They were basically a small lump of concrete used to level off the top of a spike of cliff inoder to place a column. It appeared to work and I expect it will for years to come. Hopefully. However, the journey was more interesting along a 'reasonable' earth road I struggled to keep my feet on the pegs most of the time and the rest to keep my arse on the seat. The dust kicked up and without my sun glasses my eyes were shut for a lot of the way. I arrived back looking like I had been dragged behind the bike rather than on it much to Steve's amusement - he had missed the boat and coincidentally arrived at the guesthouse the same time as I returned from the temple. Along the route they military were still clearing the side of the roads from land mines which still, reputedly, kill more than 20 people a month (down from 300+!). The driver stopped to let me peer into the (thankfully) empty hole they had dug which, I'm not an expert on mine searching/clearance technique, seemed a little wierd that they were using a crow bar to dig! Needless to say I was keen not to stay long!

Anyway, my original idea of trying to ride the bamboo train part of the way to Phenom Penh due to the ride quality had been disregarded (not that it was possible mind you, it turned out) so we hopped on a bus once more to head South...