Working on my thong tan...

So yesterday I was riding to the post office but It was closed and I was on a bit of a roll ;) So I just kept riding. I rode down by the river for a while checking out all the beautiful temples and the riverside shacks, It was lovely and I rode out along the highway for a bit through the rice paddies with the strangely bony cows and people working on skeletal bamboo frames around the cement foundations of new buildings. It was really nice to be going along at my snails pace and just seeing Cambodia, and providing a source of amusements for a lot of locals :P

This morning I woke up feeling a bit funny so I decided to go to the markets, get some food, do some life chores etc. As I passed the markets I thought, ‘I’ll just go for a quick ride along this road first…’. I rode until I got out to the rice paddies and rural houses and it was so lovely, quieter than the highway and one of the first times I’v felt almost alone in ‘ the nature’ since I got here there was a lovely breeze and it was really peaceful and I felt heaps better. As I kept cycling I got to the rubbish dump, which was on fire and really stinky, I decided to go back cause I’m pretty sure the fumes would have been carcinogenic as well as just really unpleasant. As I was passing the building that I thought would be the ‘waste management centre’ or some Cambodian version of this, A small boy with full face makeup rides out on a little pink unicycle….    That was a little surprising and I wanted to use my little bit of khmer so I went to say ‘la-or nah’ (very good). As I rode over a tree started saying enthusiastically ‘Hello!’ and I noticed it was full of children, and then about four more extremely made up kids came out of the building and started chatting to me, turns out it is an English, circus and cosmetics school! Of course! Don’t know why I didn’t recognise that straight away! I chatted to them for a while and then headed off wondering about how they work all day in that smell and with all the burning chemicals etc.

I followed what I thought was the road back to Battambang and rode happily for another 40 minutes or so before the lack of breakfast and water started to get to me and I decided I really needed to figure out where Battambang was and go there, It was fairly embarrassing having to point both ways down the road and say ‘Battambang!?’ and I think it was pretty funny, my go-to for any situation where it’s a bit awkward and I can’t explain myself is to grin and laugh a little and sometimes say ‘have no brain’ cause it’s one of the few things I know in Khmer, it seems to have gone down quite well so far… got a few laughs and smiles at least.

I arrived back in Battambang sweaty, very sunburnt and shaky with low blood sugar, but happy to have made It back. I really want to try this again with water and food and maybe even a map or vague plan cause Its really fun. I also found some lovely picnic spots that I would like to get back to if I can.

And my thong tan slowly improves.