We had a lie in today till 5.30am which was nice, met for breakfast at 6.30am & were then transferred by van to our starting point.
The start of the ride was difficult as it was on another very bumpy dirt road so my wrists were really painful but thanks to Dr Mills for putting some bandages on at our first water stop they weren’t so bad after that although we were still on a gravel road for quite some time.
The weather was fabulous & there was a little breeze so it wasn’t too hot. We stopped at a little village to eat & then continued on to the river. We got out onto a smooth road after that which was great, we picked up quite a bit of speed after that & had a really good run right into Battambang which is the third largest city in Cambodia. The traffic there was completely crazy as it is everywhere in Cambodia & I ended up walking the last 10mins to the hotel as there were vehicles coming from every direction which scared the hell out of me.
We got cleaned up which was lovely, had lunch up on the roof & then got picked up to go to the station for the bamboo train. The bamboo train is basically about 6ft by 10ft, made of bamboo with an engine & on wheels, it goes along train tracks at quite some speed, a lot faster than I expected. It was brilliant, I’m really glad we got a chance to go on it today as we’d missed it on Wednesday. When it stopped at the other end we got off for a drink. There were lots of little children playing around & climbing on the trains that were waiting for returning passengers. At one point 3 little ones that couldn’t have been more than 3 years old started pushing it, 2 at one end & I at the other. The poor little one on his own fell & almost went under it, luckily a woman ran over & picked him up. When we were returning the train with Ella, Adam, John, Jonny & Freddie wouldn’t start so they had to take an engine from another to get it going. As we were going down the tracks there was an oncoming train which they made stop & had to lift off the tracks as they didn’t want to stop the one that had broken in case they couldn’t start it again. The driver of my train got off then to help & after the train moved on he started setting fire to the bushes in 3 separate places at the side of the tracks, we didn’t know why but it looked a bit worrying. We all got back safely anyway & really enjoyed it.
Tonight we went our for pizza to the Cambodian version of Pizza Hut. It was quite amusing as we ordered 4 large pizzas between us but were told they only had 3 left, it was only 8pm so it was a bit odd that a pizzeria had run out of pizza!:-)
Back to the hotel & in bed at 10pm for a 4am start.
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