Pure bliss

We're on the move again! It was time to pack up our things and hit the road once more. This time our destination was Battambang, a 5 and a half hour mini bus ride away with stops. We arranged to be picked up from the hostel so this made our life a lot easier and we were able to enjoy one last breakfast and amazing chocolate milkshake before leveling. It turned out that I booked pretty good seats in the van. We were at the front so had extra leg room, wider seats as we had 3 seats fill the width of the van where as the back had 4 seats and a handy shelf in front for bags and putting our feet up. I sat right in the middle so had a front row seat of the crazy driving and risks people take in Cambodia. There were a few scary moments when a car would be overtaking so is in our lane and driving head on towards us and at the last minute would swerve back into their lane. We had 2 stops in total for the toilet and lunch and the journey went pretty quickly in the end which was nice. As soon as we arrived we had tuktuk drivers swarm the van with signs offering ridiculously low rates to any hostel or hotel when they didn't even know where we were staying yet. We knew ours was a 4 minute walk away so after many times repeating ourselves we decided to walk. We did get picked up by one of the drivers though on the walk who worked for the hotel and offered it to us for free. We arrived and there are two hotels and only one had the pool so we decided to ask to move to that hotel as we were originally put into the other one. We dumped our stuff and came down to have a quick juice before hitting the pool. It sticks out from the third floor so you have some nice views over the city. The pool was an amazing relief from the heat although it was so weird getting into an outside non heated pool and it being warm, you don't get that in Europe! We had a couple with us to start with but after twenty minutes or so they left and we enjoyed the pool to ourselves for nearly 3 hours. We put on YouTube and enjoyed just floating and dancing to the music. A storm rolled in which brought out hundreds of swifts all darting around to catch insects. Nick was a little scared we'd get hit by lightening! We waited it out and then the rain started, it felt so liberating. I can't tell you how amazing it was floating on your back in the water, the rain hitting your face and body while watching the birds dance across the stormy sky. I've never felt so free as in that moment, it was incredible. We practiced our best dance and gymnastic routines and singing voices before deciding we were so very wrinkly! We stood on the balcony watching the beautiful stormy sunset with all the birds swooping through the clouds. We also saw some impressive lightning bolts and of course just when I'm about to photograph the best one yet my phone dies! Typical! I went to get Nick's but it pretty much had died down by then. After showers we headed out and had some western style food, it was very nice but so filling and did leave us quite bloated. A pretty relaxing lovely afternoon really and one that I'll never forget.Read more