Hi!

I really enjoyed my couple of days in Battambong. It is a quiet place, but the people are so friendly! All the kids wave at you and talk to you - I felt like a minor celebrity!

One day we hired motor bikes and went out in the country stopping off at places of interest. We saw a fish paste factory (the smelliest factory I have been in, and I've been in a few!), a pineapple farm (where we had lunch and quite possibly the freshest pineapple I will ever eat), a centre for Street Families, as well as seeing how noodles and rice paper is made. We also had time to go for a quick dip in the river to cool off and go on a bamboo train.

The carrages of the bamboo train are made up to order. We had 13 motor bikes and 26 people to fit on - so we had to get 6! The carrages are just bamboo platforms with a motor somehow attatched. If it breaks down you just take it apart so not to hold up other users of the track! We passed a couple of carrages that had broken.

Yesterday we got the boat to Siem Reap. It took 7 hours (I think), but it was a nice trip. It is amazing how simply some of the Cambodian people live. Literally some live in boats or wooden stilt houses. Although funnily enough some of them have TVs (they have generators, and some have electricity connections).

Today we went to see some of the temples near Siem Reap.Our guide told us that there are about 400 temples - so we are just going to the main ones! We saw in the sunrise at Angkor Wat (that meant a 5am start!), then moved on to the Bayon temples (where the large stone faces are), then we went to the elephant terrace (which was used like a stadium back in the day). We went to a furhter 2 temples then watched the sun set. Over all it has been a fantastic day! I'm just really tired now.

Tommorrow we go to more temples. So watch this space for a zillion temple pictures (seriously so far I have taken hundreds - I used up two camera batteries in one morning at the temples)!! I am going to need a lot of free time to upload them, so it might not be for a few days.

Louise x.