Flying Fruit Monks Batman

---

So, I have persuaded Mitchy that the life of a fugitive is not for him (although I occasionally do wish he would be locked up, just for a day or two) so we will declare ourselves as overstayers at the border to gain another couple of days in Battembang. We will have our hero Mr Seng, owner of the hotel and general all round extraordinaire with us as he will be taking us to Bangkok. So against all expectations at the beginning of our stay in Battembang we are still here.

Our second day in Battembang started with the second major marital dispute of the trip as we searched for food and a laundry in the heat, unsure of where we were and still pining for Siem Reap, marital disputes though aren‘t really on level playing fields when one of us has all four kids and the other has all the money!

Battembang is very different to the rest of Cambodia that we have experienced, much like we imagined Laos to be. It definitely has a huge French influence, with beautiful buildings with shuttered windows. It is the second biggest city in Cambodia with approximately 850 000 people. While it is apparently the fourth most visited tourist area it does not have the tourist feel of Phnom Penh, Sihanouk Ville and Siem Reap which are the first three. I don’t imagine that it will stay like this as the area does have so much to offer, apart from their oranges and rice!
The province is called the ‘rice bowl of Cambodia’ and agriculture is its main source of income and it has the feel of a charming large country town. Very few streets have street lights and the town at night is almost silent after everyone finishes their evening meals and socializing. The days start with the Muslim ‘call to prayer” starting at about 6am ringing out above the town through loud speakers. Standing out on the balcony with the amazing sunrises in the heat of the early morning it really is an experience to behold. The sunsets are also spectacular especially viewed from the rooftop of the hotel. We experienced the first rain of our trip on our first evening here, an amazing downpour filling the streets, palm trees swaying and the light of the night sky changing to grey.

Things started to look up on the second day when we met Mr Seng. He owns the hotel but is actually a pharmacist who now imports pharmaceuticals into several Asian countries. He has a huge smile and the look that people who are really passionate about something have, the one that looks fulfilled and happy but tired! Mr Seng’s passion is Battembang and the people that live here. Next to the hotel is an English school run (at a loss but supported financially) by Seng, he also owns a nursing college a few streets away. The hotel is more of an interest and a chance to better Battembang and provide employment opportunities to the people of the city.

When we told Seng that we would be interested in visiting the school he arranged for a rooftop English class with us as the guests/teachers. Fourteen students aged seventeeen to twenty two, arrived for an hour long session with us, involving us asking the students questions and them asking us about Australia. It was a pretty unusual experience, especially as Mac and Finn wrestled their way through the class until Mac started on the young Buddhist monk while Mitchy and I attempted to look cool, calm and collected.
We have since been taken to the school and had impromptu ‘group discussions’ with another class, they were a shy bunch and centre stage was a little stressful for our kids so I taught them ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ our kids on chairs at the front of the class doing actions and me singing. Anyone who has heard me sing will appreciate that this was not very melodic!

One morning we were heading out to the market a few blocks away when Seng offered us a lift. Three and a half hours later we returned after visiting his crocodile farm, a bamboo rice village, a monument to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, Seng’s rice paddy and his brother in laws garden where he picked lotus pods for the kids to eat, we still haven‘t made it to the market!

The crocodile farm was amazing, a little different in terms of OH&S Australia style. We walked up the rickety stairs to the pens and looked into them to see a variety of aged crocs. The children understandably were a little anxious (okay, so was I) so I stayed by the door with them in a safe spot only to look down through an open pen to see a big mamma croc guarding her eggs; exit stage left, very swiftly!

The bamboo rice village was amazing, bamboo lengths are packed with rice, soy bean and coconut with banana leaves put in the top and then the bamboo is roasted over coals to cook beautiful warm, sticky, sweet rice with absolutely no artificial colours, flavours or packaging! We certainly were treated to our fill of this by the roadside with ’some to go’ heating my knees in the back of the car.

The memorial to those killed by the Khmer Rouge is just near the bamboo rice village. It is similar to the Memorial Stupa at the Killing Fields with the skulls and bones of some of those who died. The base of the memorial has sculptured pictures of the torture and deaths that the regime inflicted in the Battembong area as described by survivors of the time, some of which Seng was able to recall from his time living in the work camps as a child.
There is a real unsettling but important perspective gained by visiting such a place with a person who is so genuinely caring and kind knowing that what you see before you was in part experienced by that person.

One of the major attractions in the Battembang area is the Bamboo Train. We had heard that the Bamboo train was like a roller coaster without the height, although just the tuk tuk ride out there was a little like something from side show alley. The road, was not so much a road as a succession of varyingly deep holes joined together by a bit of gravel.

The Bamboo Train is amazing, a motor cycle engine attached to a bamboo platform sits on top of two metal ’wheels’ which powers along a train track through the Cambodian countryside. When another ‘train’ comes from the opposite direction one is disassembled for the other to pass, reassembled and then you are on your way! It is such a fun experience, the comfort level of the ride change as the gap between each piece of track increases. The scenery is spectacular, through small forested areas and farmland, past butterflies the size of small birds and dragonflies in all the colours of the rainbows. Watching the train be disassembled is great fun, and it is all round a great, yet still very authentic Cambodian experience.

At the rural turnaround stop we were taken on an impromptu tour of a family brick factory, all of the work still done by hand (and a lot of muscle). The kids thought that this was great and it proved Mitchy right as years ago he was asked by Grace what was inside a brick and answered ‘more brick‘.

After visiting the Bamboo train we set off along the bumps to the Phnom Banon Temple via what we thought the tuk tuk driver had said would be a visit to some fruit bats. As we were under the impression that bats were nocturnal we were unsure of exactly where we were going, but are getting pretty good at giving the ‘lets pretend we are relaxed about this’ impression. This uncertainty did not pass as we turned into a buddhist monestary, Olivia thought that maybe we had it wrong and we were going to see some ‘fruit monks’, I was a bit concerned about seeing them upside down in a tree. Anyway, obviously we had not been paying attention to David Attenborough and sure enough there was an enormous tree of bats all awake with the occasional few taking flight. It was amazing, we could see the bats so clearly and the visit was made all the better by the unexpectedness of the experience.

It was then off to climb the 358 steps to the top of the Phnom Banan temple at the top of a small mountain, a challenge in the heat but absolutely worth it to experience both the temple and the view. The temple is older than Angkor Wat, perched right on the top of the hill with views 360 degrees of the countryside below. The temples are amazing, not only for their grandeur and age but the pure mystery of the engineering behind them. We had met a couple from Rhode Island at the hotel the day before (self described as “Jan as in January’ and ‘Mark as in bookmark’ who are of ‘grandparent age‘), and spent some time with them on top of the mountain which was lovely.

We were so lucky to be invited to go with Seng’s family to a picnic at a river yesterday. We left at about 8 o’clock in the morning, a day at the river means a ‘day at the river here‘ Jan and Mark were also invited as were some of Seng’s wife’s family, in all eighteen of us, twelve in a minivan and the rest of the family in a ute, two on the back. I must say that they come prepared, complete with two chickens and a duck (all alive) to replace those that had been plucked ready for our lunch in the countryside!

The ride out to the river was pretty well unexplored territory, with a road only going through to the area recently. Seng explained that many of the mountains were used by the Khmer Rouge after the downfall of the regime to make further attacks on the people around Battembang. The road was pretty bouncy, most of it unsealed and toward the end it was very rugged through areas that were being felled and burned to create farm land. We asked Seng whether there would be land mines in the area and he said ‘no, no, no not any more‘, but then we started to see the land mine signs, some in the front of the houses along the track, we asked Seng again who told us that people put them there so that others will keep away from their gardens!! As we drove out we did see a couple of guys with metal detectors going over the mounds, just being doubly sure no doubt!

The trip was a pretty long two hours! But absolutely worth it. To get to the picnic and swimming area we had to cross the river, in a small, very old timber canoe. Seng had bought brand new life jackets for all of the kids which was a good thing as the canoe had holes in the bottom and needed the occasional bailing out! It was great fun and heaps of laughs, especially when one of the young girls got a wee bit confused and bailed water into the canoe instead of out!

Seng told us that we were the first Westerners (along with Jan and Mark) ever to visit the area which made us feel pretty special, especially to be able to spend this experience with such a great group of people.

A family who lived in a very primitive house by the river was preparing our lunch no less than roast chicken, duck and Battembang rice while we snacked on guava and green mango with chilli sugar on it in between swimming and playing in the rapids. The guys picked fresh river oysters while the rest of us swam. The kids loved swimming in the river, playing with the other adults and children and doing acrobatic manoeuvers with Mark. The most amazing insects hovered over the water, the colours of the dragonflies and butterflies were totally beyond belief! It was like a wonderland and definitely a once in a lifetime kind of days!

We are now spending some time relaxing and just pottering about Battembang which I have now discovered is also famous for sapphires but have managed to avoid the temptation so far. The girls and I treated ourselves to a foot massage the other day which was great although the masseuses giggled all the way through at the children, inviting their friends to all come and have a peek at them or take photos on their phones! We have also hit the streets on bikes, all safe and sound (although laughed at by the locals quite regularly), apart from Grace who had to ride her own while the others were “dinked”. The bike was a bit big for Miss Grace and she seemed to only be able to stop by falling off (her latest report is that she has a couple of minor injuries and three major ones, one of which is a red and blue bruise!) Since our first outing we have gone three to a bike which has resulted in a little more comfort for Grace but a bit more work for Mitchy and I!

We have spent some time with Jan and Mark, they are an amazing couple of adventure travellers who inspire us with their energy, worldliness, lust for life and general all round niceness. Jan is an art teacher and Mark a jeweller who is originally from Memphis with that great accent to match! They have traveled and lived in Italy and India (where Mark owned a camel for four months) as well as other countries and they have some amazing stories. The kids are completely enchanted by them, the boys especially with Mark after Mark caught a snake on our outing to the river and then spent the evening at the hotel teaching them how to make a ‘trap’ out of a ‘trash can’, bottle top, piece of string and some chop sticks. Jan has kept the kids beautifully entertained with art activities and learning to write in Khmer.

We were very spoilt tonight after Jan and Mark offered to take the kids out to the Green House for dinner (we are still going there every day) and then for a play back at the hotel for us to have a night out. The kids didn’t hesitate, even Mac, who we thought may have ended up on our romantic night out with us! It was such a great night out, not only for us to have a couple of uninterrupted hours (I fall asleep with the kids these days, unlike at home when I lasted at least half an hour after them) but also for the children to spend time with two such interesting and fun loving people!

Mitchy and I headed out on our bikes for dinner, we went looking for La Villa on the East Bank but couldn’t find it so rather than do aerobics in the park and have a corn cob, we headed down the river to the Balcony Bar, but couldn’t find this either. After an hour of riding we ended up at the Gecko bar two blocks from our hotel, but were re-energised by a margarita and a foot massage followed by dinner.

Mitchy has been hoping to find a silver souvenir to buy from Cambodia, there were heaps everywhere else we went but has had no luck so far in Battembang apart form the guy at one store who tried to tell Mitchy he had to have a silver pendant for his hairy chest!! Never a dull moment here!

We will be very sad to leave Cambodia on Thursday, it has been an amazing time for all of us.
Seng has very kindly offered for us to go with him to Bangkok on Thursday, via the seaside, which will be an interesting trip and nice to spend some more time with him. Like so many of the Khmer he has been so good to us and with people like him the future for Cambodia looks good…

---

Comments

[Leonard]

I love your stories!
Your reports are great to read and it is clear you are all having a truly fantastic and unique experience. Thanks for sharing. I am definitely going to consider a side trip to Battembang next time I am in Siem Reap after reading this. Happy trails!