5th February: Battambang, Cambodia

We were woken by the beautiful sounds of more prayers and chanting from the Wat. Despite having no religion, I found it peaceful and comforting just as the Islamic call to prayer and Christian church bells are. I think it’s the knowledge that these sounds have been heard across communities for generations and are one of the few things that remain unchanged and therefore ground us in an ever-changing world.

Today began as another planning and research day. Everything is falling into place now. I’m hoping that we’ll get the rest of the trip booked in the next couple of days and we can properly chill for the final 6 weeks. I found two coffee places within 50 metres of the hotel which definitely helped my productivity this morning!

For lunch, we popped around the corner to the lovely restaurant that was closed last night. We couldn’t resist the Khmer curry and mango smoothie once more but also tried another Cambodian dish – lok lak (a tofu version) which was peppery with onions.

We didn’t really feel like walking any further on the dusty hot streets, so did a little more planning before it was time for the main thing we wanted to do today.

At about half 4, we found a tuktuk to drive us the 15 km out of town to Phnom Sampov. On arrival, a group tried to charge us an entry fee, but they were terrible at keeping a straight face. We knew from the outset that we could walk straight past, but it was entertaining to see what they came up with. Behind them, dozens of macaques were running around. Large sitting and laying Buddhas were almost carved out of the rockface of the hill and the monkeys were having a great time in the scaffolding and abseiling on the ropes. The young ones particularly enjoyed climbing to the top of one long piece of extruding scaffolding and then sliding all the way back down.

The monkeys weren’t the reason for our trip though. This is the site of a cave where an unknown number, often estimated to be many million, bats roost. Every night at sunset, they leave together to go hunting. Almost an hour later than we expected, a few bats began to trickle out of the opening. We were massively underwhelmed, and it was getting very dark. Then, suddenly the trickle turned into a flood and a dark streak of bats squeaked across the sky. One or two even swooped down, barely missing us. The line meandered across the sky, moving as one much like a murmuration of birds. It was an astonishing sight to see and one I never considered that we might witness. 15 minutes later, they were still piling out as the night became too dark to see them any longer. We jumped in our waiting tuktuk for the ride back to town.

The journey back on dark Cambodian roads with dozens of other tuktuks was like being part of a real-life game of Mario Kart as everyone tried to overtake each other! The journey seemed to take much longer than the outward one and the air was thick with dust and smoke.

Back in town, we tried to find some street food but with limited success. If you wanted a roasted tarantula or rat on a stick, you were golden, but no chance of any vegetables! Walking in the dark down these dusty streets, with smoke and pollution thick enough to make our eyes sore, and no pavement was far from pleasant.

I gave up and bought a mini pack of cereal from the shop, but Kaja managed to figure out the local food ordering app and got some fried rice and tofu delivered. Even now, in the room there is a strong smell of smoke from crop burning. Hopefully, this is less of an issue in other places we go in Cambodia.