Sat 1st Mar - Had a nice meal at the 'Dead Fish Tower' restaurant in the evening. Buil almost like a warehouse inside, with platforms on many levels. Food and drinks are delivered between levels using trays, pulleys and ropes. A central platform is used for live traditional dancing performances which made for a nice addition to the experience. Not bad value for money either and the food was excellent.
Can't believe I forgot it is mother's day in the UK tomorrow. I rang my mum about something else, and found out accidentally. Whoops!
Sun 2nd Mar - Joined up with three girls to do some more sightseeing around the temples by tuk-tuk. First stop was Phnom Bakheng, the highest place in the area. Built in the 9th century to represent the mythical mount Meru. Most people come here in the afternoon to see the sunset but it apparently gets really busy. It was nice and quiet this morning and gives superb views over the area.
Next to Baphuon, which has been called the world's largest jigsaw puzzle. Before the civil war It was taken apart piece by piece but the records were destroyed during the khmer rouge era. The project to now restore it to its original state has taken exensive research to reassemble the jigsaw.
Next to Preah Khan which was believed to be a buddhist university, home to 1000 teachers. Like Ta Promh, it is a maze of buildings which have succumbed to the growth of tree roots and vines, making it very atmospheric. Short stop at Preah Neak Pean, which is described as an ornamental pond on a grand scale. One large central pond surrounded symmetrically by four smaller square ponds. All dry nowadays, but would have been superb in its heyday.
Liked Ta Promh that much yesterday, went back to see it again today. Then back to town and a chill out with a cocktail and some mexican snacks after a steaming hot day then back to the guest house to get sorted for leaving early in the morning for Battambang.
Great street meal in the evening. $2 for the meal plus two fruit shakes (superb range of flavours available here. I had Dragonfruit and Sapodilla shakes). Have to be up at 5:30am so off to bed early. Shame, as there a good nighlife here and might have been worth staying another day.
Mon 3rd Mar - Had booked a ticket on the Fast boat to Battambang ($14), due to leave from the dock at 7am. This is about 18km south of town. Normal chaos with the pick-up arrangemens as it started to get worrying that nothing was going to arrive. At 6:40am a tiny pick-up truck pulled up down the road, crammed with bodies and a mountain of baggage, with no apparent space left. Wrong...I had to climb on top of the stack and hold on to the baggage which started to slip off the van as we moved along. One sharp break and it would have all been off. In fact, some fell off and he had to stop to pick it up. It was actually good fun and not how I expected to get to the boat this morning. Arrived at the 'dock' through a wonderful rustic village at 7:15 and the boat was crammed as expected. Baggage and people squashed in but sorted and the boat set off at 7:30.
There had been warnings about the water level being low at this time of year, which sometimes makes for slow progress. We got stuck on a mud bank about 5 minutes after setting off, easy enough to get going again though. The water was a disgusting mud sludge colour. Life along the banks was fascinating. Floating schools and playgrounds. Floating basket ball and sports platforms surrounded by wire mesh. Fishermen casting their nets into this filthy water. Narrow boats selling produce to isolated stilted houses in the water. All of the services needed to keep this ticking over...Life going on everywhere.
Further out into the waters and the scenery is lovely. Carpets of floating water hyacinth....areas of fishing nets...the pace of life slows right down.
You also see the dramatic looking chinese fishing nets here. Large wooden frames controlled by a weight system allow the net to be lowered and raised by cantilever action. Last time I saw the same design with in Ernakulam in India.
The river continued to narrow and expand regularly, with floating villages at many of the broader sections. In early afternoon, the going got quite tricky due to the low level of the water and he tight curves. Got stuck a few times and the navigators had to push the boat off the banks with poles. At about 1:30pm the going got that bad the boat couldn't go any further, so we were offloaded complete with luggage and transferred to a couple of pick-up trucks. The one I was in had 18 passengers complete with luggage and a bicycle. Much like at the start of the day but an even bigger human mountain! Out here, there are no roads...so for the next 2 hours we were bumped through farm fields and dirt tracks, regularly getting attacked by bushes. At times the holes got so big in the ground, that we had to get out of the truck whilst the driver very slowly navigated through it. My backside was speaking to me a lot...cursing every bump!
Arrived Battambang at 3:3pm and picked up a free hotel shutle bus o the Royal hotel. Got a decent room with hot shower and TV for $10. Not the cheapest in town, but after the day I've had, I wanted somewhere nice. They can also organise everything I want to do here, so nice and convenient.
Off on walkabout in town...the hotel is almost opposite the central market. Cambodian markets, like the ones in Laos, are fascinating places to see lots of strange things going on. Animals and fish are disected and picked over without any apparent care for hygeine. Not for the squeamish. One thing I do like though, is the range of fruit available, and it is superb quality. Jackfruit, Durian, Dragonfruit, Milk fruit, Sapodilla, Tamarind, Custard apples, Rambutan, Lychees, Langon etc etc plus the normal apples, oranges, tangerines, bananas, pineapples, Coconut that go without saying.
Stopped at the 'Smokin' Pot' for dinner. They also run cooking courses here, and a class was in full swing whilst I had my dinner, which was a superbly cooked traditional khmer pork dish with a nice spicy kick to it. Really cheap prices too. The half day cooking course (9am to 1pm) costs $10.
Tue 4th Mar - Nice and easy start to the day today as have plenty of time to do what I want. After a nice breakfast, I met with the driver I had spoken to yesterday. The main highlight of the day, and for that matter of my recent travel, was going to be to ride the famous 'Battambang Bamboo Train'. I had been looking forward to doing this for a long time and I cannot believe that I am now here (can you tell I'm excited?).
My driver was SamBath or Bat for short and transport is by Moto I.e. On the back of a motorbike.
Bat was a fantastic guy and I couldn't have chosen better. 38 years old and wih three children, he has to work hard as most do here to just survive. I learn so much today abou Cambodian life and personal history through the khmer rouge era. His family were trapped in a cave when the carpet bombing was in full flow, and couldn't get out due to fire blocking the opening. They had to try and urinate on the flames to try and put them out enough to escape. Needless to say, that can't have been too easy! His father is 82 and farming further north with help from Bat's sisters. His mother died many years ago and his father never re-married. More later....
On the way south out of town, stopped at the Japanese sponsored 'Naga for peace and developement monument', which was built in september 2007 to honour Cambodia's commitment to peace after such a turbulent recent time. It is now illegal to own a firearm in Cambodia. When everyone had to surrender their weapons to the government, some monuments were built out of the weapons. This particular one is constructed out of many thousands of parts from rifles and fashioned into the shape of the mythical Naga serpent, which is of very significant importance here.
A fair ride along dirt tracks and through rustic villages to get to the bamboo train 'station'. Well not actually a station but a shack. Didn't have to wait too long and saw the 'train' coming very very slowly from the distance. Let me explain further for those who have never heard of the bamboo train.......
There is one railway line in Cambodia, built around 1990 and runs beween Poipet on the thai border and Khompong Som / Sihanoukville. The resourceful cambodians realised it's potential for their own purposes and in between the official trains running, manufactured their own wheeled transport to run on the same tracks. Originally, these trains were just rectangular metal frames with bamboo laid across them and pushed along the track with a pole. It wasn't until about 1993 when someone had the great idea to add a motor from a fishing boat. The Battambang bamboo train had come of age! Now, the problem with having a single track is that traffic can move in both directions, so if you meet something coming in the opposite direction, one of you has to get off the track! This is usually decided by weight. He with the most weight stays on the track....unless it's one of the official trains that is...get off quick! The official trains used to run fairly regular, but with the advent of beter and faster commercial buses plying the same route, the train has lost its popularity. Coupled with the horrendous state of the track, the official service was reduced from 1st august 2005 from running on alternate days in one direction and the in between days running the other, to now only running one day per week in each direction - Sunday from Battambang to Phnom Penh departing at 06:40 and costing 25,300 riel, Saturday from PP to Batt departing 06:20. And that can take 17 hours or more to cover - the bus takes 5 or 6! With foreign assistance a large sum of money has been allocated to replace the whole track by 2010, after which the bamboo train will likely vanish....boohooo....a sad day indeed! But chuffed that I've got the opportunity whilst it's sill running.
The train I went on was a light rectangular metal frame with bamboo laths running lengthways and a hole cut in it for the motor to loosely sit on. The motor drives the rear wheels with a rubber belt and the front wheels free run. I did about an hour return on the train and we had to get off the track five times during hat to let others pass. On one occasion there was an official survey team on a bogey that passed, signified by a red flag on it. They apparently do this once each day, to check the viabiliy of the track. This is a bit of a joke really, as the state of the track is amazing. Gaps of many inches beween rail sections are common and you can almost be thrown from the train when you hit one. I couldn't stop laughing as it was a fantastic hoot! The view of the track winding its way into the distance waving up and down and twisting and dropping in every direction is an incredible sight. You don't think you are going to make it, but somehow you do. At the turning point, you literally get off, lift the train up and turn it through 180 degree so the motor is on the other end and then get back on. Sometimes you have to stop to let a herd of cows get off the line. The cost of this awesome unique experience was $3 as I had a train to myself. Negotiate if there are more of you. The thing to remember is that most are operated by kids....in Cambodia there is no compulsory education system. Most kids go for upto 6 half days a week and this costs. Want extra lessons, you pay more. They go to school in the mornings and in the afternoons they work or help their parents on the farm or in shops. Those who operate these trains in the mornings generally cannot afford to be educated so this is their only income, so is helping them to survive. The country has a long way to go before this situation changes. Anyway, an exciting and memorable experience and one of my travel highlights firmly achieved.
Next off to Wat Phnom Sampeau about 18km south of town. The main temple at the entrance from the road was only built in 2006 and is a superbly painted khmer building with such beautiful artistry in the painting. In the mornings it is generally used as a buddhist school. Stopped to talk with a nice bunch of kids who had just finished school.
Next a gruelling bit of exercise to climb to the top of the Phnom Sampeau outcrop. An ongoing project to carve a massive (38m x 112.5m) buddha montage into the face of it has halted again due to lack of money. It will take many years to complete. In the searing heat it was extremely hard work to climb to the top up hundreds of steps, but the view of the countryside was worth it. A small wat and gold stupa are on the top. Much easier coming down. I was shot by this point, so we headed back to town and a welcomed shower. The roads are so dusty, you pickup a thick layer of dirt on your skin on the back of a bike in what they call 'cambodian snow' I.e. Billowing clouds of dust. It worried me at one stage when my driver admitted he just closed his eyes when we went through it. The bike had no needles so no idea of speed or how much fuel was left. He had run out of fuel before, but not often!
An aside....I mentioned recently about the presence of a lot of political signs. Many people, usually the heads of villages have them on their houses as they are sponsored by the party. The party will ulimately control the operation of that village. One of the smaller parties is the human rights party. The guy who heads It was imprisoned by the government for speaking out against them but has now been released. The Cambodian People's party and Funcinpec remain the most prominent, although the Sam Rainsy Party is gathering momentum.
Feeling refreshed after a nice shower, off to the 'White Rose' restaurant for lunch and a great fruit shake. One of the best places to eat in town.
Walked to the railway station after lunch to check It out. As services only run at the weekend, he place was shut other than being a bit of a hangout for a few folks with nothing better to do. Looked like a shanty town around it, smoke from fires along the tracks in the distant and only the notices to read outside the office about the times and costs. If they do eventually replace the track then hopefully life will return as the roads are dire in parts although the road to Phnom Penh is supposed to be one of the best in the country. So there is no real incentive to rebuild the rail link, making it more sensible to build it where the roads aren't so good.
Fancied getting my hair cut short again. Sounds easy. Problem is that they don't seem to have their hair short here and the barbers I tried could only conjure up some old fashioned mechanical shear things. I think I will leave it to somewhere else!
Went for a walk to the north part of town and sat on a wall watching a construction team who were levelling and building an embankment. Mostly women and not a power tool in sight. Every aspect manual and back breaking with a sledge hammer and chisel. Moving the earth from one place to another with a sack slung beween two poles. Everyone in bare feet. Gruelling work in this stifling heat.
Whilst I was there a group of school boys in their early to mid teens came and joined me. A few started to light up some foul cigars, which surprised me. Many of them had pollution masks on, which they removed to smoke. They couldn't get the irony when I questioned them about it. Didn't expect them to as I don't think irony is a concept they would understand. Most didn't speak any english, but one very cheeky individual spoke very well. He was the obvious group leader and was interesting to talk to as he had to be handled different to the others. An image thing I guess?
The contrast is what I find a surprise here. On one hand they seem poor, on the other they all have motorbikes or cars and mobile phones and that includes the yound kids. It is common to see an 8 year old riding a motorbike! An explanation here.... It is illegal to have a motorbike or car without a licence plate but they are everywhere. That's because the police turn a blind eye as they know who it is. The reason they do it is not only to save money but I makes It more difficult to sell a vehicle with a registration plate - too much hassle and cost to have it re-registered, so they don't bother! By the way, the japanese have a large presence here - ref the japanese funded naga monument this morning, but all cars and bikes are also japanese, mainly nissan. Australia also funds a lot of stuff as do the US. France was responsible for much of the early infrastructure but has less of a presence nowadays. There are internet and gaming cafes everywhere.
