A quiet day in Battambang

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Today was much more leisurely than yesterday although Nit and I still covered over 70km in his trusty tuktuk. We first went to Wat Phnom Ek, a temple that is contemporaneous with Wat Banan. It is worth a look but I think Wat Banan is by far the more impressive of the two. From there it was a bit of a schlep through the countryside to a small village where the primary occupation appears to be making rice paper rounds. Each household can churn out over a thousand a day that are left to dry in the sun for a few hours before being stacked to be sold and used in the making of spring rolls. I watched our hostess make a few spring rolls and wasn't shy about offering to try them, delicious, right up there with bbq rat. Our next destination was Kampong Poy reservoir, a dam that was constructed by hand between two hills. It is said that as many as 10,000 Cambodians were worked to death during its construction. It was later used by the khmer rouge to dispose of a great many bodies. Today it is a peaceful place that Cambodians come to for a little r&r. The water in the dam is used to irrigate the surrounding rice fields and they also farm lotus flowers there. We got back to Battambang around 3.30pm and I took a stroll along the waterfront that in some forums is described as "an elegant tree-lined Boulevard of French colonial chop houses". That might be stretching the point a little but with the breeze off the river it was a pleasant stroll.

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Comments

[Rene A]

A good read!
As always - interesting reading Alistair. Allowing us to "travel by proxy" :-)