We took a bus this morning from Phnom Penh to Battambang, Cambodia's fourth tourist destination. As soon as we arrived at the bus station, actually just a corner in the North of town, we were bombarded by tuk tuk drivers. There was one guy who was literally running next to the bus with a sign for some hotel as the bus was still moving. The drivers were so in your face that we grabbed all of our stuff and ran off as quickly as possible to get them to leave us alone and give ourselves some room to breathe.
We hadn't prebooked anything so we started walking around the small town to look for the two accommodation we had identified as possibilities. We went to the first hotel and it was a bit out of the way and more expensive in person than on the internet. We were told the only room available was a small dark room with a tiny window. As soon as we left the hotel there were two tuk tuk drivers waiting for us with brochures for other hotels and offering to drive us to them for free. One of the drivers had the second place we wanted to look at in his list so we agreed to go with him for free to the next hotel. The room at this hotel was massive, with a double and a twin bed and A/C for $10 on the second floor otherwise we could get an identical room on the 4th floor, there isn't an elevator, with a single fan for $5. We decided to splurge and get the $10 room.
As we checked in which involved doing nothing, not giving the hotel our passports, money or our names, the tuk tuk driver who drove us to the hotel offered to drive us anywhere else we wanted to go over the next few days. As it was only 2pm we decided to get a ride out to the bamboo train.
When we arrived at the area for the bamboo train we were met by a tourist police officer who spoke really good English and explained the history of the train to us and showed us how to pay and where to go. It was quite possibly the first time ever that a tourist police officer has done anything, I was really impressed.
I made a video of riding on the train and the ingenious way that has been worked out to allow trains in opposite directions to pass each other on a single track railroad.
We rode the train to a small village with a brick building factory and then returned to where we had started via the bamboo train. It is really funny when you encounter other trains and everyone jumps off and allows the train from the other direction to go past. Whichever side has more passengers and cars is the side that gets to stay on the tracks while the other side disassembles their car.
Check out all of today's pictures in the slideshow below:
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