Travels with Hayley

Today, for the very first time on this trip, I awarded myself a lay in and didn’t set the alarm until 7.30am – the decadence! Quick shoot out to pick up my laundry – I could get so used to this having stuff done for you malarky – and packed up my case as we were leaving today for Battambang. I still can’t face sitting in the hotel dining rooms (so stuffy, so many smells!) but I had, in a stroke of genius, saved a small plastic bag I’d been given at a shop and so made myself a little bus picnic of jam rolls and bananas, just like the toddlers have 😂

We hit a load of traffic congestion halfway out of town and amazingly, this turned out to be because a guy was on the side of the road selling holy pictures and so many people had stopped to buy one. Kom thought maybe the monk I told you about before was making another appearance and it was about that – this is a fascinating country in so many different ways.

Whizzing down the highway passing the mix of glitzy houses, corrugated iron roofed shacks, farmland and on one memorable occasion, a tin shed in the middle of a stretch of deserted highway operating as a barbers shop. There cannot possibly be plumbing out there – and where are his clients coming from? He looked pretty busy though so he obviously knew what he was doing!

We stopped for a comfort break and much excitement as they had snacks we hadn’t seen before! We got some coconut wafers and some barbecued banana cheeks – picture attached. I’ll tell you more about them tomorrow as we’re going to see them be made apparently – I think I might have spoiled the surprise a bit by buying them a day early 😂.

Yesterday Kom had asked if we fancied being the day one guinea pigs for a new activity that was launching and if successful, Intrepid might add to future schedules. It was a canoe ride through a bird sanctuary and as it was new and untested, it would only cost 3 USD each. Of course we all said yes (never say no to an adventure/bargain!) and we headed off there. Some slight teething problems when the boat eagerly sat waiting for us only seated 6 and there’s 12 of us – he pootled away to find a mate with another boat and arrived back around half an hour later – alone – but we were assured another boat would arrive imminently and so it did. Imminently-ish…On we all got with our brand spanking new life vests – look, they still had the hangars in them ( I actually think this might be what the 3 USD went towards, this was literally a brand new venture for them) And off we went.

I’m running out of superlatives a bit for this trip but oh my, this was just amazing. Amazing. Thousands and thousands of birds nesting in the trees, swooping down in front of us, the sound of their calls completely filling the air while our brightly painted boats chugged down the river. Most of them were a species that looked like a small crane (dad, quite similar to the wallpaper you put up in my hallway cupboard – less pattern matching stress though 😂) – spindly long legs, huge, scalloped wings, white closest to the body and then edged in the deepest black.

They were so beautiful and elegant flying around and so regal when perching. The only time the stylish facade slipped was on take off when they did a slightly desperate kind of hover with their legs pedalling frantically on an invisible bicycle until suddenly something clicked in and the effortless gliding started. The whole thing was just spectacular with not another person to be seen the whole time we were out on the water.

Shortly after our boat (the mate’s boat that had been fetched in a hurry) turned around to come back, the engine was turned off and we drifted in serene silence for a minute – the captain was pointing from his perch at the back and saying ‘turtle, turtle!’ Thrilled, we all peered into the water, rocking the boat precariously and trying desperately to see the alleged terrapin.

It took a solid two minutes of fruitless turtle searching before someone clicked what he was an actually saying was ‘paddle!’ It transpired that the engine hadn’t been turned off at all – in the haste to procure another boat, the small but essential step of topping it up with petrol had been overlooked and we were out of fuel 😂 The paddle – just a big pole – that he was gesturing to and couldn’t reach was at the other end of the boat and he had been repeatedly asking us for it while we summarily ignored him and looked into the water instead!

With this confusion sorted he started punting us back along the river in a very laid back, laissez-faire kind of way until the other boat popped back to see where we had disappeared to. Conversations were had, boat two disappeared and we recommenced our punting – for quite some time…Eventually the other boat turned up again and through the aid of enthusiastic sign language we surmised that we needed to swop canoes mid river. Kerry assures me this is called rafting – I call it an invitation to fall in but let’s not argue over semantics – and we all made it over, laughing our heads off and miraculously staying dry! The funniest thing was, we’d punted so far we could have made it back in way less time carrying on than the faff of switching boats – but it did make the whole experience even funnier so we should be grateful for the story!

Back on the bus, through more tiny towns, more gaudy houses and some Kom ‘small story’ specials including one about a local food made from the intestine, bile and dung of a cow 🤢 Kom bought if for his children recently – he waited until they ate and liked it, then gleefully told them what it was the next day – he couldn’t stop laughing telling that one 😂

Quick stop at the service station for some more questionable snacks (the yellow box of banana chocolate things tasted exactly like the foam bananas we had as kids) and a wee – never let an offer of a toilet break go unaccepted, that’s my motto!

Because the bird sanctuary wasn’t in the schedule and for various – administrative reasons – it had run long, by the time we got to the hotel we had exactly 17 minutes to check in, change into temple visiting appropriate clothes and visit the ‘French patisserie’ bakery opposite for an on the move lunch! Everyone made it with seconds to spare with baked goods in hand – let’s sweep past the success of these except to say that France would turn in it’s elegant grave if it found out what they were knocking out under the name of patisserie – ham and cheese sweet bread sandwich with sweetcorn and carrot cream anyone?

Into the tuk tuk’s for the 40 minute ride to a temple and the ‘killing caves’. The weather was quite breezy and it’s a very dusty town – thank goodness for sunglasses doing double service as eye protectors as with the open sides of the tuk tuk I otherwise may not have been able to see by the time I arrived. However the breeze was lovely and it was nice not to feel the sweat trickling down your back for once!

Along the way we saw some roadside sellers with the famous barbecued rats – we begged Kom to pull over and buy us one to try – he went one better and bought us a rat and a bottle of home tapped palm wine – brought to you in a reused plastic drinks bottle with pink lid! I can confirm that rat tastes pretty much like chicken/pork (maybe- I don’t really eat roast pork, I don’t know what it tastes like!) but very boney.

Palm wine however is delicious, fruity and zingy with basically no indication it’s alcoholic – a lethal combination at times I suspect! See the guide’s face before and after he knocked back half the bottle 😂

We arrived at the pick up point to wait for our 4×4 open back trucks to head up the mountain and had a few minutes to spare. Of course, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore/chat to random people and there was the most beautiful female monk. By use of judicious sign language she confirmed she was happy for me to take her picture, and it turned out so gorgeously 🥰 She was so lovely, you could just feel the kind energy radiating from her in waves.

Over the other side was a guy with his little boy and two tiny puppies (so many puppies here. Puppies, cats and children everywhere!) so I went over to see the puppies and got talking to him, he spoke great English.

He was telling me that in Cambodia you greet animals with ‘kiki, kiki!’ I couldn’t totally follow the explanation but I think it’s just a catch all term of endearment/call to get them to come over – like here kitty kitty but for all animals. At this point he also sidled up to me a bit and said in – I imagine he thought – suave fashion “I also know how to communicate with women” wink wink! Then swiftly added “But I don’t as my wife would kill me!” He fell about with laughter, sweet guy. Smart wife!

We got to the temple and learned a bit more about the Khmer Rouge and saw the caves where so many were murdered. It’s so strange, there was one cave where the adults were killed and another for children – why? But how can you possibly apply logic to those monsters – they killed people for wearing glasses as they said that made you ‘too intelligent’.

Around the temple itself were both male and female monks looking serene and benign – unlike the 2 guys looking after the huge shrine in the cave itself who were having a nap and a fag respectively!

And, as everywhere, lots of beautiful little children running around and some stray cats!

After this sobering visit we needed something to lighten the mood, so drove to see a natural phenomenon that the locals come out in droves to watch each night. There’s a hill with an enormous Buddha carved into the face of it and various other carvings and statues, next to which is a huge hole. Inside live approximately (I don’t know how they counted and came up with this figure) 1.5 million bats. Every evening at around sunset they fly out all together and it’s quite the local crowd puller.

A few hundred plastic chairs and tables were laid out and local families and a few tourists were sitting about in the clearing at the side of the road, all eating foods cooked by the ever enterprising sellers that had set up grills at the back. Most popular seemed to be crabs, snails, eggs where they make a hole in each end, drain the egg out, mix with herbs and pepper, put it back in and steam it, the ‘other’ eggs with the half formed baby birds in (the only thing on these tours I have ever refused to try – just a step too far. This is from a girl who has eaten pig brain…) and a thin kind of crispy flat bread.

We tried the first type of eggs – they’re alright, like a slightly boring and solid omelette and the bread, which was a weird texture, a bit like a very thin, slightly stale prawn cracker and slightly sweet – Kerry said it reminded her of candy floss (actually fairy floss as they call it down under!) and I could see what she meant, it had the same way of melting as soon as it hit your tongue.

Like the degenerate gamblers we are, we ran a book at a dollar a bet on what time the bats would come out of the cave and so we were all on tenterhooks waiting for the bat signal as it were! Sadly, I should have heeded the warnings about gambling being a mugs game as my guess of 17.44 was off by 6 minutes and I shall forever more be a dollar lighter. At 17.38 the first bat emerged and it really was the most spectacular sight. I really tried to get a photo but they were moving so fast it was almost impossible, there’s a very short video below that shows a bit but it doesn’t capture how dramatic it was.

They flood out in a huge dense group, flying as one in a flowing, sinuous stream. When they get to a certain point, they do a kind of loop the loop and then carry on. Remember those long, brightly coloured dancers/gymnasts ribbons you can get on sticks that you wave around and they move in a slow ripple? It was just like that. After a solid 10 minutes of them streaming out, the volume began to decline but they still kept coming – at this point we decided that while impressive, we’d probably watched enough vermin flying out of a hole in the wall really and so took our leave.

We got back in the tuk tuks for the off road style experience back (the roads were so bumpy, I might need to put more supportive bras on the list for the next trip 😳) and headed back to the hotel, past the now standard randomness such as a bride and groom in full regalia, on their phones, in a deserted pet shop. Your guess is as good as mine!

Our timing was perfection as the moment we stepped foot into the hotel, the rain started absolutely lashing down and lightening was splitting open the sky. I really, really love tuk tuks but I think being in one during that might have tested even me!

Again, excellent timing kicked in as by the time we needed to leave again for dinner it had worn itself out. We picked our way through the puddles back to the tuk tuks – dried the seats off and made our way to the ‘head’ tuk tuk driver’s home where he runs a kind of eat what you’re given ‘restaurant’ in his front garden!

We’d been assured his wife was a wonderful cook and he was was near enough the money, the food was pretty good! First up was slices of aubergine deep fried in tempura batter, dipped in a black pepper and lime sauce, this was gorgeous. Then chicken with ginger – so very much ginger, I couldn’t eat it, my mouth was burning!

Delicious glass noodles with wood ear mushrooms, minced pork and soy skin – like I saw being made at the very start of the trip. I’m so glad I got to try it! It doesn’t have much taste but it’s perfectly pleasant.

The main course was a hot pot – you have a mini gas burner in the middle of the table with the metal dish on top. Around the ‘moat’ at the edge is broth that you drop vegetables in to cook, then the middle is raised and you smear a little butter on (actually you’re supposed to use pork fat but apparently the westerners baulk at that so they’ve switched to butter for the lily livered white folks!) and then add small slices of meat to cook. When the meat is done to your satisfaction you drop it in your bowl with a few scoops of the broth and vegetables and voila, fresh meat soup! It’s a very clever way of making a small amount of meat go a long way so they can make more profit and it’s fun – for like the first three minutes. Then you just want to eat your dinner without the faffing about. But anyway, I’d filled up on aubergine and noodles so I just tried a piece each of the meats for research purposes – chicken – tender and delicious, beef – pretty good, if beef is your thing, pork – had to do a cough into a tissue to get rid 😂

When we got back Kerry and I realised we’d let the snack pot run dry – how to do our snack time debrief with no snacks! So off we went in the drizzling rain and pitch black looking for a shop. Wildly unsuccessfully. At one point we saw something lit up in the distance and hurried towards it – turned out to be an open bike parts shop, chock full of people sitting around on the floor and chatting. At 9.30 at night. I love this country 😍. Being charmed by their whimsy didn’t get us any closer to our snack goals though so we set off again, dodging the jigsaw of potholed concrete that passes as pavement and descending into puddles. Honest to goodness, the things I’ll do for a Kit Kat 😂 In the end we had to give up, but claiming a weak victory from the jaws of defeat, we went back to the ‘French patisserie’ which opened until 10pm and got whatever they had leftover! We tried 2 – one was basically a bread roll with custard – it was alright. How much can you say about a bread roll with custard really…? The other was a small sticky vanilla cake which was very nice indeed and made being damp and muddy almost worth it! The rest have been saved for future snack emergencies.

Another day, another adventure tomorrow. I’d tell you what it would be but I can’t keep up with the schedule at all so I just turn up at the allotted hour and let it be a lovely surprise!

Love you all millions xxx