Riding the bamboo train

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Day 383: Friday 17th July - Travelling to Battambang

Today is a travel day, a long travel day. It takes us ten and a half hours from Kampot to Battambang via Phnom Penh. The bus picks us up early before 7am and I’m not ready. I hate rushing, not a good way to start the day. We get lucky in Phnom Penh and transfer directly from one bus to another without having to wait. The Phnom Penh to Battambang road is better and although a longer distance takes a similar - five hours.

I’m shattered by the time we reach Battambang at 5:30pm. A motodop driver meets us off the bus and takes us to the Royal Hotel. Normally, I laugh at such names but this time I am offered a room fit for a king. I don’t know if tiredness clouds my judgement or whether it is because I want to stick with Mike and Trudi but I decline the nicest room I’ve seen in Asia so far and it was only a $7 room. I end up paying $5 anyway for a decent enough room but I can’t stop kicking myself over my decision. Over dinner with Mike and Trudi I tell them I am going to change hotels tomorrow. An early night beckons and hopefully a late morning too, as I’m exhausted after many successive early mornings and a long day travelling today.

Day 384: Saturday 18th July - Riding the bamboo train

Carpe Diem - seize the day. Yesterday arriving in Battambang I didn’t seize the moment and this morning it’s gone. I try to see if I can get the room I was shown last night for $7 but it has been taken or it is too early in the day to be offering the room at such ridiculously low prices. Damn! I trudge through dusty central Battambang for breakfast and think what might have been. Indecision gets you nowhere.

There is only one thing I’ve come to Battambang - Cambodia’s second largest city, but more like a large town - for and that is to ride the bamboo train. The place I get breakfast is run by an ex-pat and I ask him how much it should cost for a motodop ride there and back as well as the train. He tells me that the train is a fixed $6 but if you don’t link it with the price of the motodop, the driver will try to rip you off. This proves useful information. Whilst waiting for Mike and Trudi in the hotel lobby, I start bargaining with a driver and agree on a price of $12 ($6 + $6) for the moto ride and the bamboo train. I know I’ve got a good deal as he keeps trying to add a dollar on. The problem is he’s dealing with a tourist who knows the correct price and he soon gives up beaten - yeah!

It is only a few kilometres out of Battambang to the bamboo train. The bamboo train or “norry” consists of little more than a platform made of bamboo with a motor on the back which you sit on, which is then attached to two axles. The three of us climb aboard along with the driver and his engineer (I’m making their titles up but two Khmer’s anyway) and we’re off. Within a minute or so we meet a train carrying two tourists coming the other way on the single track. Our driver stops and then the other norry pushes us back along the track to the starting point, where their train is promptly dismantled (more about that shortly) and the track is clear for us to resume our journey in the right direction.

Our trip on the bamboo train lasts only 15-20 minutes, how far we travel I don’t know but at a guess about 10 kilometres. It is hard to tell as I don’t know what speed we were doing. It feels fast as you’re close to the ground with the wind in your face but in reality I doubt we were doing anything more than 30 miles an hour. On that track you couldn’t. For one, it is slightly overgrown. Secondly, the rails aren’t straight. And finally, the rails are badly joined together and occasionally there are small gaps in the track. And, that’s without mentioning the fact that we met another train, laden with timber and locals halfway down the track. At which point, we slowed to a stop, got off and the two guys dismantled the norry with the speed and efficiency of a formula one pit crew. Literally, it takes seconds....the two guys lift the bamboo platform and put it on the side of the track and then grab an axle each and lay them down next to the axle. The rule of the bamboo railway is whoever has less passengers/cargo has to dismantle for the other train to pass.

At the end of the line (well not technically as it continues to Phnom Penh, but the end of the line for us) we are welcomed by a villager to come and sit in his cafe. He clearly wants to sell us a drink which we aren’t interested in but do take a seat and enjoy the presence of some Cambodian children. The Khmer children are just so incredibly friendly. They lack the natural shyness and reserve of the Cambodian adults and are a joy to behold. I can understand why Angelina Jolie wanted to adopt some children after filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. They are just the best and will be one of my images of the country when I look back in the future of my memories of Cambodia.

Our drivers turn the norry around (pick the platform up and turn it so the motor is on the back) and then we’re off again back up the track to where we started. It was great fun and well worth the $2 we paid each for the ride on the bamboo train. There is a fruit stall next to where we get off the train selling some rambutans, guavas and custard apples. I’ve had rambutan before (like a lychee) but never the other two so give them a try. The guava is like an apple but not as sweet or tasty and a bit tougher and I’m not keen. The custard apple though despite appearances to the contrary is good, it’s very sweet but I can’t really describe what it is similar to.

Back in Battambang just after noon, we have the rest of the day at our leisure. The town itself holds little of interest but the surrounding area does. However, a day before we head to Siem Reap and Angkor the mother of all temple complexes, visiting a couple of temples around Battambang isn’t that enticing. Neither is seeing a killing cave. After Phnom Penh and the killing fields I think I’ve seen about as much of Cambodia’s depressing modern history as I can take. The verdict then is to have a relaxing afternoon. I end up being frustrated for most of it by internet connections and give up in the end in favour of a good book. I meet Mike and Trudi later for dinner and we go to a busy restaurant. The ice cream shakes and sundaes rock and are cheap, perhaps that’s why it’s so busy?

I have one final decision to make in Battambang - how to get to Siem Reap. Option 1) Take a boat for $17 which leaves at 7am, takes 8 hours and takes a very interesting and scenic journey along some small rivers and past some charming floating villages and crosses southeast Asia’s biggest lake - Tonle Sap. Or option 2) Take a bus for $4 (so a fraction of the price of the boat), which leaves at 9:30am (so more of a lie-in), takes just 4 hours (so gets to Siem Reap earlier) but doesn’t have the same scenic attraction. Decisions, decisions........

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