Siem Reap to Battambang, Cambodia

I walked to the travel agency and then was tuk tukked to the depot.  We left 20 minutes late then had to backtrack to pick up a couple who had been put on the wrong shuttle.  I was a bit nervous because I was being picked up at 11:45 from my hostel in Battambang and according to Maps.me, I wasn’t going to make it. The trip was advertised from 8 am-11 am but I kept telling myself to just let it be.  All things work out!  

The driver managed 3 cell phones at one time.  The third phone is tucked in his shirt collar-

and at one time he was talking on 2 at the same time!

Along the way-

Wouldn’t you know it but we arrived as scheduled at 11 am!  I took a tuk tuk to Pomme Hostel where there’s a really good map of Cambodia on the wall-

I couldn’t check in but soon my guide arrived to start the tour.  There were 7 of us- a woman from France, a Chinese man who didn’t understand a word of English, two British and an Argentinian couple who have a travel blog and write gastronomic and travel books for a living-

Some-all, our guide, tried really hard but he only pronounced half of his words and he spoke a mile a minute with “right?” and “you know?” thrown in at the end of every sentence.  I had a really hard time understanding him and sometimes went to lala land instead of paying attention!

We stopped at a roundabout with a large Black Buddha holding a stick.  He is the legend of why the town is called Battambang and the stick was used to stir rice.  Battambang means - Battam - lost and Bang- stick.  I couldn’t tell you what the story is but ….  Throughout the day I kept wonder how a person could put together a similar tour in The Battlefords, milking people for money to show them mediocre things … but I digress.  I was along to see two things and they were great!

We stopped to see some cattle but apparently they aren’t a breed, just known as Cambodian cattle (see what I mean?).  They are very skinny and are fed rice straw now until the rainy season in July when the grass will start to grow again. Upon further research I learned that they are predominantly Zebu with some being Haryana and/or cross bred with Brahman.

Pomelos (grapefruit) and guava are covered in plastic bags on the trees to protect them-

Climbing wettle-

Young leaves are ground into a paste and used for cooking.  It smells delicious, like onion and garlic-

The Buddhist flag-

A swinging bridge-

A Buddhist temple park with crazy statues-

The Chinese Buddhists bury their dead-

and the Cambodian Buddhists cremate theirs and put them in stupas-

My favourite activity of the day was riding the Bamboo Train. After the Khmer Rouge were overthrown in 1979, locals needed a way to move people and goods.  The tracks were still in place but there were no cars so the people made small ones using bamboo-

Today it’s a tourist highlight in Battambang.  We went 6 km each way-

In the beginning they didn’t use motors but there were 2 men who used long poles to push the train along, just like the long boats.  That would have taken forever and been gruelling work.  If you meet a car, the one with the most passengers has the right of way so the train bed is taken off and the wheels, which look like weight bars and dumbbells are put to the side to allow the cars to pass through-

Our next stop was lunch where I had another Cambodia specialty- sour soup.  It was good but not quite Tom Yum Goong-

Our guide prepared local fruit for dessert-

After lunch we stopped at a barbecue rat booth-

It tasted like the dried out tips of chicken wings-

Of course no tour in Southeast Asia is complete without a temple or two.  This one is not very old as the stupa was built in 2007-

The golden temple and stupa were built in 2004-

The view from the top-

There were nasty monkeys and one snatched a bag right out of a young boy’s hands and enjoyed his snacks.  They are cute-

In the distance we could see a temple that was used as a torture chamber during the Khmer Rouge time.  It is back to being a temple-

There were Chinese zodiac banners with donation boxes-

I’m the year of the ox-

We went to the temple and saw the staircase of 476 steps-

where the Khmer Rouge walked their prisoners up from the village.  They were tortured in the temple and then taken to Lakhon Cave where they were shot or beaten to death because bullets were expensive.  They dropped into the cave-

There’s a memorial of bones-

There were only 60,000 Khmer Rouge soldiers.  The population of Cambodia was 8 million and 3 million were killed.  They picked on the educated of course because they would have understood the gravity of the situation and perhaps been able to organize a coup.  

Near the temple are statues of people committing sins-

such as adulterers-

Drinkers-

A woman who bared her breast to feed her child in public-

Gossipers-

people who attend cockfights and of course the judges. These statues are meant to deter sinning!  I wonder if they work?

Our last stop was to watch bats fly out of a cave-

Of course they wait until dusk or even later to go hunting for the night.  It’s hard to know how many there are but hundreds fly out for an hour each night.  It’s estimated there are between 3 and 30 million.  A local takes the bat poop out of the cave twice a month and sells it as fertilizer.  

I was exhausted by the time I got back to my room.  The room itself is fine as it’s very private and quiet-

I paid for AC and that’s a 4” vent in my ceiling that wouldn’t cool a Kleenex box.  Oh well, I also have a fan and am moving on in the morning to Kampot which is in the south of Cambodia.

Today is Nico’s 9th birthday!  He and his Dad have been antique shopping and found a chair, lantern and typewriter!  He is quite the kid-