Day 6 Moung Russey to Battambang

Day 6:

This morning myself Ola and Mattias met at 6pm to go in search of breakfast for the team. Our hotel over looked the market so we didn’t have far to walk! We managed to find some bananas and baguettes which seems to have become the norm.  Once we had eaten breakfast, we were ready to start our journey from Moung Russey to Battambang.

The journey today was again very rural, and much to every ones anguish the roads were once again extremely bumpy, so much so the support vehicle and trailer had to take a few detours. We cycled through small villages stopping occasionally for water breaks and to chat with the locals. In most of the villages we have travelled through there is at least one house selling water and Cambodian snacks. At one of the places we stopped at the people who lived there recognised Ola and Frederick from the week previously when they were checking out the routes on a motorbike. They invited us all to site in there terrace, which is effectively their garden.

After about 45km of cycling on the rocky uneven dirt tracks we hit a tarmac road, the relief amongst the group was noticeable and the pace picked up significantly. We travelled roughly around a further 13km on this road before arriving in Battambang, and we went from dodging pot holes and rocks to trucks and scooters.

On the approach to Battambang, there was a distinct difference between it and all of the other places we had stayed during the week. This place had the feel of a large vibrant city, the sound of the music from weddings echoed around this City.

The food we had been eating for the last few days comprised of fairly basic traditional rice and noodle dishes, so we were quite excited to see burgers on the menu. Cheese burger and chips all round!!

As we had missed out on the Bamboo train earlier in the week we decided go on one today, but this time without the bikes!! The trains only take 4 people on each, but as we were 9 (including Frederick) we managed to convince them to take a 4 and a 5. This was great fun, and I was surprised how fast they went considering that the engine basically resembled that of a lawn mower!

Now to bed as we are up at 4am to head to Siam Reep.