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Trip Start Mar 23, 2010 Previous
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  Battambang, KH.01, Cambodia
Monday, March 29, 2010

Battambang is amazing! Me and Lorna who I met when I first arrived here shared a moto-taxi to have a look around the local temples and the killing caves. We headed to the bamboo train (part of the railway which was demolished by the Khmer Rouge has been rebuilt by the local villagers and you can sit on sheets of bamboo and get driven around by a moped engine) which was fun, and when we returned walking trough a village, there was a 65th party going on, called the festival of longlife in one of the houses. We were invited in and stuffed full of Cambodian home-cooking, and invited back that night. The night was brilliant, we danced loads and drank plenty of homemade Cambodian wine which tasted like Benalyn and took 3-4 months to make. The next day we got on a bus to a place called Pursat, then hired some push-bikes for a few pence and biked 25 miles to some floating villages - entire infrastructures of any town expect on water. There were floating schools, petrol stations, hardware stores... it was impressive but it seemed pretty impractical! We went to a really nice restaurant too and I ate lobster whilst lying back in a hammock for around a dollar, so can't complain there! We're back in Battambang now, renting a motorbike today (only a 125 though!) and exploring some of the local villages. Also yesterday I did a bit of English teaching at the local NGO-run school which was good fun. I didn't realise exactly how poor a country really was, but 2% of the child population still die from malnutrition, and 40,000 people a year are injured by land mines or unexploded bombs. The infrastructure is taking so long to rebuild, most roads are still being re-built after Khmer Rouge rule. There are NGO's all over trying to improve things though, which was really uplifting to witness at the school.

Hope alls well back home, hopefully the photos will upload!

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Eating well at the festival of long-life	65th party	Bamboo train	Bamboo train
jungly area	bamboo train route	temple	buddhist decorations at a temple
part if the killing caves.	killing caves.	buddha i presume!	more buddhas. i think.
temple decoration again	khmer rouge weaponry	view from mountain	temple decor
don't really know what this is	inside a temple at the top of a mountain	me and someone from the party	lorna and the daughter of the 65year
same but with me in it	lorna with the wife of the 65 year old	me with the kids at the party	the dancefloor
floating village	floating village	floating village	floating village
floating village	lorna on the boat at the floating village	floating village	random lizards
me teaching at the NGOrun school	the schoolkids

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