Breakfast today was an omelette and baguette and a cup of coffee. I chose this so I could take the baguette on the bus with me to eat. The hotel's tuk-tuk driver took me to the Paramount Bus Station a few minutes away. The bus was a real bus; passengers sat upstairs and luggage and the driver were downstairs. Passengers had reserved seats. When I found my seat, there was a police officer sitting in it who obviously couldn't figure out where he belonged. When the man who ended up sitting next to me arrived, he had to displace the young Cambodian man who was in the wrong seat. There were only two of us on the bus who were not Cambodian and, fortunately for me, we were seated next to each other.

My bus companion was a man originally from England who had lived in Cambodia for 13 years and is married to a Cambodian woman and has a 6 year old daughter. He is an engineer and had previously been in the Royal Navy on a submarine; he came to Cambodia originally to work on developing armor to be used by those unearthing land mines, then worked with the U.S. government on machines to detect land mines. One of his current projects is working with an NGO on a new type of windmill that can be used to pump water. He was interesting and, fortunately, knew bus travel in Cambodia. He was taking his motorcycle to Battambang for work because, as he put it, the U.S. government wants him to travel around and inspect their machines, but won't provide any transportation for him to do this. (He wasn't too happy about this.)

The bus had a big screen TV in front that continuously played Cambodian music videos with Khmer karaoke lyrics on the screen (fortunately no one on the bus broke into song). For the last part of the trip, the videos were replaced by the movie Rambo and everyone on the bus seemed to be enthralled by the violence and explosions and fires that seemed to be most of what the movie is about. We had two stops in the seven hour 291 km ride. The first stop was for snacks and the second place had a typical restaurant serving rice and various other things stir fried together. I had my baguette and some fruit and made do with that. The facilities were of the "squat" variety. At the second place, opposite the individual "squats" behind closed doors was a row of men's urinals, all outside. Toilet facilities here are interesting. Be the toilets "squat" or regular, there is often a big cistern of water next to the toilet with a bowl or some other utensil to scoop it up with. I really had no idea what this was for until I saw a man scoop up some water, pour it over his hands and have the rinse water go on the floor around the toilet to drain away. That would explain, in part, why the floors are wet. Occassionally there is an actual sink, but no soap or towels of any sort. Toilet paper is a hit or miss item and is not to be disposed of in the toilet, but in the basket (if you can find it.)

Once in Battambang, I collected my luggage. I knew the street address of the hotel, but no map that I had actually had that street on it. I found a tuk-tuk driver who offered to take me to the hotel for $1 which I agreed to. It turns out the hotel was just behind me and across the street and all I would have had to do would have been to turn around and walk. I did not pay him and he agreed that I should not. He helped carry my luggage in and up the two flights of stairs to my room in the Asia Hotel (with no elevator) and asked me to use him as a guide the next day. He gave me his card, "Mr. Guide." Based on what he had done at the bus station, I wasn't so sure I trusted him. Things seemed a bit chaotic at the hotel when I checked in. First they couldn't find my reservation and then they just seemed very busy. I got myself organized and set off on foot to explore Battambang, Cambodia's second largest city.

Battambang is a far cry from Phnom Penh. It is relatively quiet and has no big city feel at all. There is a river running through the city. On the far side it looked like there were some big hotels, a big pagoda, and a park next to the river (used by the locals for nighttime exercises and walking and jogging.) On the. I first visited a pagoda very close to my hotel, Wat Phipheratam, then walked through main side is the market, and the small business district. At the other end of town, I came upon Wat Kampheng, a pagoda and monastery. I walked in and saw a large Buddha statue, but below it was a supine statue of a man with vultures eating his intestines. There were three schoolboys on bicycles parked near the statue and talking. I was pondering the significance of this statue when one of the monks approached me and started talking to me. According The Lonely Planet, the monks at this pagoda like to practice their English and are friendly to tourists. I asked him about the statue, and he responded that somehow it was connected to Buddhism and the view of death. (My independent research: death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of one's past actions.) So my take, is that the destruction of the body is what happens in this world, but that the spirit lives on. We spoke about his sister who lives in the U.S. and why he became a monk. He told me he is 27 and became a monk 3 years ago after his parents died and he felt alone and only wanted to spend his life studying. I gave him my address and he gave me his sister's telephone number in the U.S.

I continued on my walk, so the Battambang Province Administrative Building (like the capitol) and the Governor's Residence. Across the street was the tourist information office, the first official tourist information office I have seen on this trip. I had read on the internet that this was a good place to arrange tours, so I went in and got set up for the next day for a moto tour of the surrounding countryside.

Continuing on my walk, I saw another Wat (pagoda), people doing their evening exercises, and a stage set up for an outdoor concert. Across the street is an area of outdoor food booths that stretches for about a block. I stopped and had a fruit shake for $1 and found out the concert didn't start for another hour and was some American group. Then on my way to The White Rose for dinner where I saw a couple that had been in the tourist information office earlier, so we ate together (Veronica, an architect originally from Veracruz, and her boyfriend, Nicholas, a student in Germany, and they live in Germany). They invited me to join them and we had quite a nice dinner. They gave me some tips on the Battambang- Siem Reap boat trip and we just talked and ate. Then, back to the Asia Hotel for some sleep.