Pursat Just Got Miles Better...

... about 90 miles in fact, as we're now in Battambang!

We left Pursat promptly at 11.45 am on Tuesday, on the 10.30 a.m. bus (yep!), and arrived in Battambang, a little shaken and stirred, at about 3.30 pm.

Before we left Pursat, however, we decided  - foolishly, after the first night's experience - to try breakfast at the hotel's 'restaurant'.   (Oh, and by the way, folks, your food orders are on their way to you by tuk-tuk, so get those plates warming, and the wine in the chiller - apart from Sandra, of course, who's no doubt scouring Harvey Nicks as we speak for suitable shoes and bags...).   Well, we each ordered chicken noddle soup, usually a staple breakfast over here, together with one black coffee and one Liptons Tea (why is it that Liptons is ubiquitous everywhere outside of the UK, but as rare as rocking-horse pooh in the UK?)  Anyway, both the tea and the coffee smelt, even before they got it to the table, and then tasted, seriously of undiluted anti-freeze or paint stripper.   So, we pushed our drinks to one side - though not far enough away NOT to be able to smell it all the time - while we looked, with increasing horror, into the 'kitchen' area where our noddle soup was being prepared and cooked.   This morning, they'd opened the huge garage-like rolling door (which should have given us a clue) at the back of the restaurant, to reveal a massive hangar-sized industrial unit, complete with all kinds of industrial tools, rows and rows of tyres hanging on ceiling-hung brackets, and several huge oil-drums full of god-know-what chemicals, and, strewn all over the dusty floor, bits of motor-bike or truck-parts.    In fact, it looked like a really scruffy version of son-in-law Matt's Bromsgrove Body Repairs workshop (sorry about the comparison, Matt, it's for illustrative purposes only!).  In one corner of this vast workshop, however, there was a filthy worktop and a large, thick-walled clay pot full of burning charcoal, on which our soup was being prepared and cooked!   Surprise, surprise, when it arrived, it smelt of exactly the same industrial chemicals as had our tea and coffee....   As they used to say in the NoW before it was abandoned by that nice Mr Murdoch, at this stage we made our excuses and left.

Will blog again when we've had more chance to explore Battambang - and will hopefully add some photos, too.

Oh, but we forgot to mention, for Cath, Matt, Lucca and Rui, that we scored 165 in our "I-Spy at the Airport" book which you bought us - 150 points at Heathrow, and a further 15 for spotting 'Person with Sign' when we arrived at Ponchentrong Airport in Cambodia.   Phone the Guinness Book of Records immediately!