Stray - Siem Reap to Battambang

Along the road to Battambang we pulled over at a roadside stall selling barbecued meats. The stall itself was nothing new but the difference became noticeable as we closed in. Whole rat, bird and snake lay across the grill and platters of crickets, cockroaches and grubs were displayed on the table. Dried fish carcasses hung from the rafter whilst large plastic caskets of locally brewed whiskey stood fermenting nearby. A blanket of charcoal fumes and the sweet tang of cooking meat filled our nostrils. No one was quite brave enough to eat a whole rat but Alex ate some of the grubs and crickets with Keo and Christian. Kim and everyone else looked on with mild disgust. Alex's verdict - the grubs 'weren't great' and the crickets were 'just crispy'.

At Battambang, just as we had at Ban Pak Nguey in Laos, we stayed the night in a village 'homestay' rather than a hostel. However before arriving we stopped to ride the 'Bamboo Train', a rail system built by the French during their colonisation of Cambodia and largely destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. A 7km section is still used by locals with bamboo platforms lain on train axels, powered by go-kart engines. With the wind in our hair we sat cross-legged on the bamboo. The quick 'thump' of the engine and the slow 'click-clack' of the axels hitting the track joints broke the silence of the countryside.

We competed for the track with wandering cows as well as carriages coming in the other direction. Whilst the cows were slowly herded away, when confronted with another carriage, one was quickly dismantled and reassembled once the other had past. At the 'end-of-the-line' village, a group of small young girls implored with sing-song voices and big dark eyes to buy hand-made bracelets and waved us off when we returned back down the track.

At dusk we visited the 'bat cave' where every evening millions of black squeaking bats burst from a cave in the cliffside to form a huge vibrating snake out across the sky.

This meant that by the time we reached the village it was completely dark. Having ridden in an open-sided tuk tuk we were splattered by an aerial bombardment of bug 'road-kill' before slipping our way through the thick slimy mud tracks to the homestay. We took off our flip flops to walk barefoot as the quagmire would only seek to keep these as a souvenir and we lit our way with mobile phones that turned the mud grey. The cool liquid squeezing and squelching between our toes as we tentatively moved forward in the darkness.

Tired and disoriented it was with relief when we finally arrived. After washing the mud from our feet and legs, we sat down to a wholesome meal of traditional Khymer food; fried spring rolls, curry and rice. We drank beer and 'cobra-blood whiskey' under the halo of a single electric bulb whilst an army of nighttime bugs flew around overhead.Read more