19./20.03.2016
After some overwhelming, inspiring and exhausting days at Siem Reap, we headed a little bit south to Battambang, a small town next to a river and with an old quarter with French architecture.
We arrived at lunch time and were just exhaustet of the crazy heat in that town! It had around 40 degrees and no fresh breeze at all! Furthermore we booked a private room which turned out to be the room directly underneath the roof! We were the lucky ones to sleep in an oven with only two fans and no working shower :D So we decided to stay as long as possible at a Café and have some refreshing fruit shakes!
Niklas and Lisa later headed to a bat cave where with the beginning of the sunset one million of bats leave their cave and shade the sky for some hours!
It was too hot to explore the town which seemed to us a little bit abandoned, especially in the evening the lights were turned off and only some restaurants were open. Compared to all the other places we've visited before, this seemed to be the calmest place in the evening! We couldn't even find a supermarket to get some food for our journey on the next day (we decided to leave Battambang on the next day to get a fresh sea breeze and recover from the heat).
Although the town was sleeping very early, we found a very nice place to have dinner, very delicious and on a nice balcony.
We tried to stay awake a little bit longer so our room could cool down a little bit. Against our worries, we could sleep very well with a wet towel to cool down our bodies.
On the next day we had to get up early so it wasn't that hot then. We were picked up by a minivan which brought us to a bigger bus. Our bus was packed with locals and their crazy luggage. Sometimes they even travel with chicken or other animals that have to be transported from A to B! Very funny!
It took us around 8h to get to Phnom Penh because there were a lot of constructions on the road and too many overloaded buses and trucks! When we arrived in the capital of Cambodia, we certainly missed our connecting bus to Sihanoukville so we had to wait 2hours for the next bus. Luckily we could buy some cookies and drinks at the supermarket next to the bus station. Our bus was already packed with motorbikes and other big packages. We had our own seats and compared to the other bus, there was no horrible local music videos or comedy shows on the TV, so we were able to sleep a little bit.
When we arrived it was already half past 10 and the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere in the city center of Sihanouk. We met a nice guy who was also heading to Otres beach and who knew the area well as he worked since 9month in Phnom Penh. We shared a Tuktuk with him and finally reached our accommodation where we could fall directly into our beds! =)