Cambodia and back into Thailand

Much to my annoyance, a long blog I wrote yesterday seems to have been deleted.  I'll try and replace that at some point.  First, something I'd forgotten from before:

We had a fish massage in Siem Reap.  This involves putting your feet in a pool of water with fish in.  These fish then make a meal of the dead skin on your feet.  This obviously creates a very odd sensation - but is quite nice (if tickly) and made my feet slightly less gross.

So, after a pleasant if somewhat hassled time in Siem Reap, we were happy to move on to a small place north of there called Kompong Chnang ($6 bus ride).  We were slightly concverned we'd not know where to get off as the bus goes to Battambang eventually, but the guide highlighted some landmarks so we managed to find the right stop.  Landmarks might be a bit of an overstatement there - there was an independence monument...andf it was the only place we'd stopped that was 'town like' thus far, so we figured it was our stop.  The main attractions of Kompoing Chnang are that it is not Siem Reap...and it has potteries and a river to the North East.  For us another attraction was staying in a nicer guesthouse than we had in Siem Reap for the same price.  This place had functional a/c (the other did not), a nice bed (the other was foam with stained, poorly fitting sheets) and no mosquitos in the room (you guessed it, the other did).  The disadvantages of the place were 1) the electricity cut out a fair few times - leaving us rather hot in our rooms (and without cold beer!) and in the dark 2)the only 'restaurants' in town were not very nice dull places, although cheap.  We walked out to the river on our full day there, which was a very pleasant walk despite giving us the only hassling (you want ferry ride?  We take you, nice ride you see floating village) of our time there and despite the incredible heat (walking in to a restaurant two S.African blokes said 'you hot then' - it was only then I noticed my rather wet t-shirt.

From Kompong Chnang we went to Battambang - closer to the Thai border.  We were staying at the Royal hotel, and were somewhat surprised to find a cheap tuktuk affiliated with the Royal to take us there - normally these are the reserve of crap hotels trying to pull in trade.  For $10 a night we got a nice a/c ensuite room in this hotel complete with roof bar in central Battambang.  On our second day there we took a tour with a tuk tuk ($20 between 3 of us).  We decided to get a guide ($12 for him and moto, $10 for just him - we made a mistake there, especially given later he took Morritz (German guy we went with) to a spice shop and almost certainly took commission for the trip).  Anyawy, we had a very nice day going up a mountain to a Wat, and some caves known as 'killing caves' - used by the Khmer Rouge to kill people in by various means.  There are stil some bones there, although many have been removed and cremated as Buddhism requires.  The only other thing of note in Battambang was The Smokin' Pot restaurant which gave us $4 Amok (curry) with drinks - so cheap (and good) we felt compelled to buy their cookbook - which I will use when i get home.

After 3 nights in Battambang we had to catch a taxi to Poipet - Rough guides, again being rough, told us we could get a 3hr $3 bus in the morning.  This bus in fact left at 11.30 - meaning we'd have arrived in Bangkok about 8pm or there abouts.  So with Lucy (French girl we met there) we caught a taxi for $30 - a reasonable price judging from the signs up for shared taxis in Khmer, with prices set at about that for the whole taxi - lthough in those, there would be 7 people including the driver - tight fit!  We arrived at the border in 2 hours - the road was much improved in \the 23 weeks since we'd been there last, with the mud removed and much more tarmac than previously.  We sailed through both sets of immigration lines, jumped on a tuktuk, to the bus station, and then straight on to a 1st class bus to Bangkok.  On arrival there (5 hours later) we had a bit of a faff finding departures, but got there eventually and again jumped straight on to a bus to Ayuthia.