Battambang...Cambodia's second largest city. But you'd never know it when you get here. It's quiet, slow, and peaceful without much tourism going on.
To get here, however, was an adventure in itself. I took the express boat from Siem Reap up the Sangkar river. Let me just say there was nothing "express" about it. The word express was painted on the side of the boat but that's about it. We were all told different times on how long it would take...I was told five hours. An American girl I met was told six. An Israeli couple was told eight. Nine and 1/2 hours later we finally arrived. The river is supposedly Cambodia's most scenic to travel ...and it was for the first few hours...but nine and 1/2 hours of scenic river in the hot sun with no food and limited water made for a long trip.
There's not too much to do here so I rented a motorbike to go explore on my own. I got lucky on my first day and followed a couple Australian guys who hired local guides to drive them around to the only tourist things to do...basically a few temples, a Khmer Rouge killing sight, and then the "bamboo" railroad ride back to the city. The bamboo railroad is simply just a plank of bamboo wood that they set down on a pair of axles and hook up to a lawnmower engine. Now I'm now railway engineer, but I don't think there were too many international railway standards being met on this thing. I thought for sure we were going to go flying off the track at any moment. Without the local guides, however, I never would have found these places.
My second day, I spent just riding around aimlessly to the nearby villages in the countryside...a great way to see real Cambodian life.