Headed across the bridge for breakfast and ended up at Maddison Corner café where we ordered a full breakfast. Was very average food and service. Our tuk tuk driver picked us up and took us to the bamboo train. Battambang’s bamboo train is one of the world’s all-time unique rail journeys. The train bumps 7km along warped, misaligned rails and vertiginous bridges left by the French. The journey takes 20 minutes each way, with a 20-minute stop at O Sra Lav in between. At the village children swoop to sell their wares, together with mothers selling clothes and drinks. I met a young girl, Lisa who is in year 8 and wants to become an engineer because she likes math. I even bought a couple of braid bracelets from her. Each bamboo train – known in Khmer as a norry (nori) – consists of a 3m-long wooden frame, covered lengthwise with slats made of ultralight bamboo, that rest on two barbell-like bogies, the aft one connected by fan belts to a 6HP gasoline engine and travels up to 15km/h. The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the most ineluctable problem faced on any single-track line: what to do when two trains going in opposite directions meet. In the case of bamboo trains, the answer is simple: one car is quickly disassembled and set on the ground beside the tracks so that the other can pass. The rule is that the car with the fewest passengers has to cede priority. It was a lot of fun. Lunch was at White Rose restaurant where Kevin ordered the special coconut shake which he says was the best shake he has ever had. After lunch we were again picked up by TukTuk and taken to Phnom Sampeau Killing Cave. Major atrocities occurred there during the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Many victims were bludgeoned to death and then tossed into holes which served as the skylights to the caves. Men and women were placed in separate caves and clothes in another.Today there is a large glass memorial in the cave next to the skulls and bones and a golden reclining Buddha. It is reached via a staircase. A memorial, assembled from cyclone fencing and chicken wire, contains human bones at the base of the stairway. Then there are the bats, yes bats. We sat having a beer waiting at The Bat caves for them to appear. Suddenly a stream of Bats appears and they fly off into the distance in a line formation. 25 min later they are still flying out. We headed off and 3km from the cave we could still see the formation. There must be millions in the cave system. They come out every evening and the come back in again prior to sunrise. After a quick shower we headed back to White Rose Restaurant for dinner.
