We arrived at about midday (an easy 4 hour trip) and checked into "Here be dragons" hostel (the only hostel in the city). A bed here is $2...you can't really go wrong!

We (Benje and I) met a couple of girls who invited us to join them to visit the bamboo train and a mountain with a killing cave and bats so we joined them. The bamboo train wasn't quite what I expected...I pictured a proper train that was just made out of bamboo. I was slightly wrong with this as it was simply a 3m x 3m bamboo slab that sat on top of two wheels with an engine on the back! (You can see in the photo!) It was like a kids fairground ride through the Cambodian fields. It went surprisingly fast. At sunset we went to watch billions of bats fly out of a cave in Phnom Sampeau mountain. We could have also seen the Killing Caves here but decided against it as it was another $3 and probably very depressing. I had seen the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh so I wasn't too bothered. The swarm of bats was incredible though - there must have been millions of them as they were still flying out of the cave after 20 minutes. You could see the massive trail of them flying above the trees all in one line. Apparently they go out to eat the fruit at this time and all return in the early morning. In the evening Benje and I went across the road to enjoy some street food and a popular Cambodian fruit shake. The noodle dish with beef and vegetables was great but unfortunately the shake was vile and incredibly sugary - yes even for me! Still it came to a grand total of $2.50..not bad ey!

On the 13th, Benje and I had a tour around Battambang with some Cambodian dudes on motorbikes for $12. The day involved visiting Phnom Banan which has 5 temple-like towers on the top of a mountain (reminiscent of the layout of Angkor Wat!) and then we went into a big cave to explore! We needed torches and had to crawl through some small spaces, it was good fun. We went to Wat Kor Village which is famous for its old Khmer heritage houses built almost a century ago. It was cool to see the house, but not amazing. Then we went to the Banon Winery and tried 4 different glasses - one was a very strong ginger shot which I drank but didn't like, another was a very strong whisky smelling drink which I couldn't even drink. The smell was incredibly strong and it was about 40% alcohol. I could drink the other two glasses - one had a grapejuice flavour and the other was a bitter red wine. We were sat next to a few French people and they were not impressed! Haha. Our final stop was to a 1960's building that used to be where Pepsi was produced. It was simply a dark and dingy warehouse building with the Pepsi logo on the front - really not worth going to see! After this, we decided the motorbike guides were useless so asked to be dropped in the centre of town. They first took me to a bus station (Soyra) so I could get a bus ticket to Bangkok...it was $17 and the only time was 12.45pm so I bought it. Little did I know that there were 2 other bus stations in the town, one of which charged just $13 to Bangkok and left at a more convenient time so I wouldn't arrive in Bagkok in the middle of the night (not great for a solo girl traveller!) I only discovered this in the evening when I was talking to a tuktuk driver who bought a French girl to meet us at our hostel that evening for dinner as she was travelling solo and we met her in the winery earlier that day. I was so grateful he told me this although I realised I had been scammed once again as the motor driver would have got commissionfor taking us there. He suggested that I try and swap it the next morning...which is now - and I have just been for a jog around the city (6.45am) and also did manage to get my money back from Soyra bus station so that I could buy a cheaper and more convenient bus from Capital One bus station! I'm so happy right now J and I'm chilling in the hostel on a hammock watching the world of Battambang go by. The tuktuk driver was so kind he took us for dinner at the street stalls, helped us order and then took us to a bar and paid for all drinks (or maybe we just walked out without paying...or maybe he was going to get his rich friend to pay, I'm not quite sure)! It was great talking to him too...he went to University but had to stop as he didn't have enough money to pay for it. He also needed to get a job to look after his mother and 3 younger sisters. He had to borrow money from the bank to buy his tuktuk to work and so now he is paying it off every month. University is $320 a year but that doesn't include books or equipment, transport etc. So he doesn't have a chance of saving this amount of money to return to study. It's such a shame so many people here want to learn and achieve in life, but if you don't have money in the first place you are pretty screwed. I wish we could swap some of the Cambodians with some English kids who don't care about education...then they would see where they would end up with no qualifications. Makes me so angry!

So here I am chilling in Here be Dragons hostel. Its 10am and the sun is already burning my back! It's been about 36 degrees over the past two days...I am constantly dripping between 11am and 4pm! Yes, SEXY J

So today I will chill, catch up on sleep and maybe try skyping those of you who are slackers and not at work today!

Love you all...hope these messages aren't boring you and please feel free to write a message. I know I hear from most of you individually...but if you have any comments, questions or whatever then do comment

ps. Happy Valentines Day today! My first single valentines in a while...I may go find a Cambodian to date me this evening. What an experience that'll be ey