26th Feb - 3rd March: Kiss Kiss.. Battambang!

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What do you know, I’m more than a little behind with my blogging, too much lazing around and enjoying myself to start typing that’s what… loads of photos to sort through, beaches to bathe on, DVD’s to digest, games to play, oh and of course places to see… so what’s new eh? Well, the next leg of our trip turned out to be one of the more memorable journeys to date, Siem Reap to Battambang via boat across the great ‘Tonle Sap’ proved to be an uncomfor-gettable eye opener. Tonle Sap literally translates into ‘Large Fresh Water River’ and is home to innumerable, transient floating homes, floating schools, floating shops, whole floating communities that fish this most abundant expanse of water. Seasonal monsoon rainfall swells this relatively small one metre deep body of water into a whopping great floodplain, swallowing forests and fields to cover an area in excess of 16,000 square km. This annual flooding creates the perfect conditions for fresh water fish to breed, and the subsequent fishing then supports 3 million people and is said to provide 75% of Cambodia’s annual inland fish catch. The journey took us past all manner of floating homes, some virtually falling apart and seemingly held together with nothing more than string and a prayer, weathered brown thatched sides and roofing, sagging and decaying, rusty drums buoying the dilapidated structures defying gravity yet defiantly staying afloat. It is truly humbling as a ‘westerner’ to witness these poor but hardy people eking out a meagre existence, constantly on the move in this forever changing, watery landscape farming the lake of its seasonal bounty. Reinforces the belief of just how lucky I am…


The journey across the lake continued past more homes, boats, communities, the hours went by and we were chugging up a small contributory river that appeared to be getting narrower and narrower the further we progressed and the waters got shallower and shallower with every twisty turn we took. Navigating this tiny river was obviously a highly skilled task and the boat had an onboard ‘pole boy’ to push and slide the craft around infinite sharp bends (with the aid of a big bamboo pole) and to avoid oncoming collisions with similar vessels. Shallower still, and in our wake entire expanses of the water simply gushed away to leave an exposed riverbed complete with fish flapping about on their sides until we pushed through further and the boats swell would take them back to the rightful homes. Finally we stopped, no discernable city in sight, no sign of human activity, no harbour, no jetty, no civilisation. I thought we were just dropping a couple of locals off near one of their farmsteads or villages, as I couldn’t believe at first that we were to disembark here. Looking around at the bewildered expressions on other tourist’s faces, all asking the same questions in their native tongue ‘Are we here?’ ‘Is this it?’ ‘What’s going on?’ the dawning realisation was that our boat could physically sail no further.


We scrambled up the muddy bank and surveyed our new situation, an accumulation of roughly 30 tourists (Claire & I included) complete with a huge luggage compliment were to shoehorn ourselves into two waiting 4x4 Toyota pickups, not people carriers or MPV’s just regular open pickup trucks. With a mixture between the Krypton Factor and Twister everyone managed the seemingly impossible task of boarding these vehicles, luggage included and let me tell you not all folks clambering aboard were nimble and able bodied. The one defining incident that sticks in mind here is the group of French travellers who (one apparently had a cold) had to all stay together as a group in the comfort of the front cab, whilst a tiny frail white haired pensioner had to endure the scrum in the back of the pick up. Our group asked repeatedly out of courtesy’s sake for this fragile old dear to ride up front and for one of the more able bodied French group to swap places for the journey, all to no avail, which both astounded and disgusted everyone looking on at this selfish display. Realising that nothing could break this battle of wills we proceed to haul the old dear into the throng of luggage and bodies, wedging her deep in the centre of our mass to hopefully provide enough stability during our white knuckle ride across the countryside. I kid you not when I tell you we were all holding on to each other and frantically grabbing hold of scant parts of the pickup truck that supplied a firm grip, anything to prevent us from coming adrift, straining muscles in fingers and arms, causing a flood of perspiration. The journey was across ploughed fields and some huge empty drainage ditches where, due to the overloaded capacity, we had to jump out and allow the truck to make it on its own before we jumped back on. Now don’t get me wrong, this may sound utterly exhilarating and in some ways it was, but at the time, sharing the back of a pickup with 12-13 strangers plus luggage, tearing across unforgiving countryside, holding on with all your might for dear life kind of took the real ‘fun’ out of the journey and replaced it instead with wild eyed fear and a maniacs laugh.


I lived to tell the tale, and it sort of made me realise just how easy travelling around is these days, if you don’t fly overland there is usually a bus or train to take, with options of sleeping compartments and air con for a small upgrade price. I personally enjoy the little luxuries that modern travel brings and yet having arrived in such a cramped and uncomfortable way, feeling that I had accomplished something by just hanging on, made the journey infinitely more memorable and exciting, although I must confess it’s not a journey I will want to be repeating any time soon… So with a coating of dust and a fresh collection of scratch marks caused from the rapidly passing overgrown bramble we disentangled our collective huddle from the 4x4 and planted two firm feet in Battambang. We were greeted almost instantaneously from a herd of tuk-tuk drivers frantically trying to gain our custom and offering choice accommodation for us to check into. We chose a softly spoken lad who called himself Ireland, had a very good grasp of English and also had one of the nicest looking rides to boot, he talked to us of the many delights the area had to offer and gave us a quick tour of the town before dropping us off at our desired location which just happened to be one of the best value hotels we have yet to stay in. $15 US dollars a night for a sumptuous double room in a brand spanking new hotel, beautifully tiled floors, room service, A/C, cable, broadband connection - as I said earlier we enjoy the luxuries modern travelling affords and after the mad bumpy ride here this pampering certainly hit all the right spots.


A good nights rest and we were raring to go, we had arranged with our tuk-tuk driver Ireland the day before to pick us up, and bang on the button he was there with a smile. Our first trip here was to find another memorable mode of transport, namely the Bamboo Train. There is an excellent site at goworldtravel.com that goes into great detail about this little known excursion, but basically, when the French controlled Cambodia they created a small rail network through the jungle terrain to transport fruits and coffee from various isolated plantations to modern civilisation. When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 they destroyed this means of transportation but left the tracks intact but by the time Pol Pots viscous regime finally fell from power in 1979 most of the line had been reclaimed by nature. Locals however, seeing its potential in a devastated post war landscape, took about recovering the track from the jungles grip and having cleared the track they set about constructing a suitable low-tech mode of transport. With necessity being the mother of all invention the locals assembled a slatted bamboo panel to use as a base, they fashioned axles from military vehicles, utilised a portable one horsepower petrol engine that was coupled to the axles with a rubber strip from an old car tyre and hey presto - the Bamboo Train was born. This vehicle can be easily assembled / disassembled in minutes from it’s component parts, the fact that there is only one track here with numerous ‘trains’ running up and down its length this portability makes perfect sense. Our driver arrived down the tracks with his young lad in tow, they disassembled our ride, turned it around, put a couple of mats down for us to sit on, we clambered aboard and away we go. Laugh, I had tears streaming down my face all the way, like go- karting on British Rail, it has to be one of the most surreal experiences, clacking along a railway on our magic carpet ride, passing the crops and cattle in the fields at knee height, you could visibly see the track rushing beneath your feet in between the bamboo slats of the base of the vehicle, the old man in full control looking serene with the air flying through his hair - such a great ride. Before we knew it we had reached our destination a small village (I mean a shack with some drink for sale) the ride was turned around and we were treated to a return journey - it was all over too soon and I cannot stress how enjoyable this little jolly is and whole heartedly recommend it to anyone venturing to Battambang.


Following the mornings hilarities on the locally known ‘Norry Train’, Ireland our driver took us on a more sombre trail to the nearby mountain of Phnom Sampeau which houses the hauntingly named Killing Caves. Less well known than the Killing Fields near Phnom Penh this was to be our first taste and shocking first hand introduction into the destruction and brutality that the Khmer Rouge reigned upon this country. Climbing up and around this small hill we wound up at a Buddhist Pagoda on top of the mount, here we found an innocent looking small square building that was once used to ‘process the subversives’. Following imprisonment and torture the captives would have been led to the mountains natural caves, hacked and beaten to death before being thrown into the dark cavernous depths. A shrine has been built from donations from the faithful (all forms of religious worship, as well as any form of invention or artistic free thought were forcibly banned during Pol Pots rule) and there is a glass fronted cage packed with human skulls and bones recovered after the dictatorship had been crushed which serve as a poignant reminder of Cambodia’s darkest hours.


Battambang is apparently Cambodia’s second largest city yet has more of a small town feel to it than other cities we have been to, there is a river that divides the town into two and it’s very easy to get around, the locals are polite, easy going and always friendly. We certainly enjoyed our stay here but there is only so much to keep you busy, we took in more ruins and temples at Ba Nan, Barseat & Wat Ek that are all very good respectively and all sites are relatively close to the town. However after a few days we had sort of exhausted our reasons to linger any longer, and so took a more civilised journey on, up to Phnom Penh, so until next time folks :o) keep trucking!

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Photos

Killing Caves - The Holding House
The Khmer Rouge held captives here before being led to a brutal death in the nearby caves

More Ruins - Churning The Sea Of Milk
Lintel carving depicting creation myth - do they really mean the milky way?