As i said last time we spoke we were heading for shnooksvile (sihanoukville), on the bus which again was a four hour ass numbing journey (the busses are the same as at home just for some bizzar reason the seats are smaller and closer together, they dont seat any more people than a coach from home its just plain weird). So we arrived at the bus station out of town with a mouth like ghandi's flip flop, so went to buy water, with the usual frong of drivers in hot pursuit, dont think i made many friends when i told them to b***** off and leave us alone, if we wanted them, like the water we would find them. So we walked out of the bus depo with "THE BOOK" open on the map of shnooksville, 800m from bus depo to town, no death march?? To my great supprise it was not 800m to town but the tight yorkshire man broke out his wallet and paid the princely sum of one dollar for a 3k tuk-tuk ride, bargin! Now i know what you're thinking "they've never managed to find a hotel without a death march have they??" Well yes..............and most deffently no.
The first hotel we stopperd at we stayed at, eventually, ( first we, like all female shoppers know, we had to vist every other hotel in town, with our forteen killo packs, in the middle of the day to make sure we were getting a bargin. Like many women will know, often when you return tio the first shop, what you wanted some one else has bought! No different with the hotel room) we setled for a seven dollar prison cell, which turned out to be a bargin, on the fact its location is smack in the middle of every thing with out being to noisy.

So bring on a week of beach glory, (not forgetting the lessons learned in Na trag, ohh toastey) soft white sand between you're toes, waves lapping against the shore, the sound of thunder in you're ears?? Yeah, we turn up on a beach and it belted down, sadly we got stuck in a sea front pub with a load of locals, drinking beer and eating sea food, that was cooked right in front of you for discount prices, because we were eatting the same food as people around us, we paid the same price!!( that never happens, you still get skin tax) The sun came out the next day and we got some nice relaxing time on the beach, that night we decided to go find a market to eat at, because when we were in PP (Pnom pehn) the market food was so good and so cheap we ate there all the time. To say shnooks is different is an understatment, the street food we bought was bloody awfull, chichen wing tips, chilly chichen skin in bread with pickled veg, well i suppose its our fault for not speaking the lingo, ( little did i know this would be a problem the next day!) so off to the pub to wash out the awfull taste of wrongness.

When we got up the next day, i developed a problem with my hair, unlike ussual it wasn't the lack of it, it was the amount!! So off to the market for breakie and a hair cut, first attempt was with a pair of scissors?? After several motioned hand gestures, acompanied by "BZZZZZ" we realised they had no clippers so we left, round two, clippers that were blunt but they were clippers. The next few minutes went a little like this..... "Number one all over," not a clue, gaurd off, BZZZZ, skinned, "ok, yes?" "ermm a little on the late side, its quite short isn't it??" "no rob, short is a number one all over, thats very bloody short" "ermm yeah, well its a good job you like bald men??" So haircut number three in two months.

We spent the next couple of days hidding from sudden and very heavy down pours, eatting bbq on the beach, swimming in the sea and generally enjoying the beach, untill........we came home from drinking on the beach, our shoes were covered in sand, we didn't want to cover the room in sand so.......i left my flip flops outside our room (sounds awfull but i figured with all westerners staying at the hotel my shoes would be fine) some dirty, cheap ass, no good son of a bi*#h stole my VANS flip flops, the shoes had survived all this time only for a white faced theving get to pinch them( do you get the feeling i liked these thongs??) I wore my trainers for the rest of the day, staring at other peoples feet all day, kinda freaks people out a bit, heart broken i told hev i wanted to leave shnooksville, my love affair was over!! We booked tickets to Battambang that afternoon. I had to buy the cheapest nastiest flip-flops (not cause im cheap, thats all they sold) in the world, that within two days blistered my toes.

We boarded a bus to Battambang, ( BB) via PP, the first leg was of a fancy pants coach, the pinicale of luxury travel, from PP to Battambang was more .....rustic. We arrived in Battambang, again at night, with very little idea where we were in town, so off we strolled to the first main looking road and a guest house called "the moon", Hevs always wanted to go to the moon, thankfully they were fully booked, we ventured on to find a hotel that opened four months ago, is brand new and cost eight dollars a night !! We've done a MAG, awesome.
We spent our first full day in BB wandering the streets getting a feel for the town and checking out were to eat and drink, we once again found ourselves in the market, trying excellent local dishes, then found a resturant which is as good and as cheap??

The cooking course at the SMOKING POT was booked for the afternoon, we spent the morning checking out a museum of lintels so we were well pumped by the time the course started. "First we will go to the rich market to buy the ingredents, for the dishes you choose" we were told , "well whys it called the rich market??" we enquired "because only the rich people can afford to shop there." My first thought was "well if we shop at the poor market, does that make the course any cheaper??" but this remained a thought as we were lead round a market as full of noise, sights and smells as any one sensory system can handle. With all the ingredients bought, explained and collected we returned to the resturant to begin. (oh i should point out it was only us one the course, as in just the two of us, with our own teacher, book in the afternoon and this is common!) We were showed how to prepair veg and pastes and meats, we ground herbs, basicly we were taught, step by step how to cook three amazing khemer dishes, its hard to explain how good this course is, unless you have done somthing similar, i mean i can cook but this was just fun, like being a kid again. (some people would quistion the "again" part of that last sentance)
We cooked three kickass dishes, (which we couldn't finish, because there was too much) had a great afternoon and got a cookbook to take away, bargain of the trip so far.

So we booked our selves on a tour of the surrounding distric of BB, purely because we knew we would never see it all if left to our own devices, the driver picked us up at eight thirty, no tour guide, alarm bells started to ring, the driver explained, he was also a guide and spoke perfecly good english, bells stopped ringing and off we set. We were taken to a rice wine distillery to see, well rice wine being...distilled. Ok it sounds a bit dull but it was great, the left over rice is fed to pigs, that squealled exactlly like the pigs from hanibal (the second sillence of the lambs films) very unnerving first thing in the morning, or in fact at any time of day, but we ignored the pigs and tryed rice wine strong enough to blow you're socks off, which gave the rest of the morning, kinda of fussy warm feeling, the mushroom farm was less adventurous but intresting none the less, back in the tuk-tuk and off to the killing caves (not even the wine helped in putting i light hearted feel to this depressing place) more mass murder, more sad history of this beautifull country and its beautifull people.

We looked around temples and pagodas that were used as prisons, although none of this is evident any more thankfully, we were shown artillery used by the vietnemise, against the khemer rouge, which after thirty years is in good enough nik for me to be able to raise and lower the barrel and aim apparantly at thailand, which greatly amused our driver, whom we discovered was named..........DAVE!! No im not saying we called him dave because we couldn't pronounce his name, he was called dave! Dave lept over or on to every thing he saw, (very much like being with graham) he told us in two years he hoped to be able to fly?? After lunch we were taken to see fruit bats, they are much harder to capture on film than either one of us had ever imagined, so the photos are a result of about forty minutes of taking pictures of sky and trees, hugly frustrating. After this largly fruit(he he)less endevour we were taken to a vinyard, as a reward id like to think, were we sampled red wine and brandy, made from grapes which are harvested three times a year (we dont know if this is unusual but we knodded and ohhed at the right times, we think?) with that slightly fussy feeling renstated we continued to the "dancing bridge" which is a bridge that wobbles or "dances" as you walk across it, we were shown peanuts growing, they grow on the ground not in trees like i'd always thought! Hev tryed to teach a little girl patter cake, but she seemed much happier just slapping hevs, and my hands. We rounded an action packed (largly thanks to the tank tracks, or roads as there known over here)day off with a visit to the bamboo railway, a simple bamboo platform on train tracks that travells about six k and back, couple of dollars we thought, not twelve dollars, we tried to haggle the price with no avail, so left, thanks charlie boardman!!

If the last bit makes us sound tight consider, two air con bus tickets to Siam Reap have cost us nine dollars, its swings and rounderbouts, we weren't that fussed about the railway any way. So as the more astute of you may have gathered, we leave for Siam Reap tomorrow to see the world famous, and apparantly giagantic Ankor Wat.

So untill then take care of you'reselves and each other.

love the shoestring two.