Battambang

Main street of Battambang.  With a Camry LE of course.

Battambang is a fairly small town and gave us a chance to see some typical Cambodian life outside the capital and major tourist centers.  The town itself had an extremely relaxed feel to it -- great for wandering the street along the river and watching the locals come out for group aerobics as the sun went down.

Market stall selling all sorts of grilled things.

C enjoying grilled pork on a stick.   

We stopped at a market stall to get some yummy-smelling pork on a stick ($0.50).  Actually the meat was squeezed between two sticks.  Too bad we didn't think to remove the twine holding the sticks together and instead ate it more like corn on the cob.

A descending the steps while being fanned by helper children.

We visited two temples outside Battambang. The first was Wat Banan which is an old Hindu temple at the top of a small hill. We climbed 458 steps to the top accompanied by local children who fanned us each all the way up and back in hopes of a small tip. The temple was mostly in ruins but had also been appropriated by Buddhists and had Buddha statues under each surviving tower.

At the top of Wat Banan

Shrine inside Wat Banan

Fanning

Helper #2

Helper #3

The second temple we went to, Phnom Sampeau, was more modern and had been built to honor the people who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge in this location and thrown into caves in the mountainside. The most memorable thing about this temple (for A, certainly) is that we paid $3 for a moto ride up to the top... A's fist time on any sort of motorbike/motorcycle.

A on a motirbike!  You saw it here first.

At Phnom Sampeau the helper-children spoke to our guide, rather than us.  They appeared to give our guide information about the site which our guide translated for us.  Accordingly, our guide gave the children some money this time.

At the top of Phnom Sampeau.  (Phnom means "mountain" in the Khmer language.

View from Phnom Sampeau

The hills sprout directly out of the plains.

After returning to the base of the mountain, our guide bought us some elephant apple fruit to try.  Not so tasty as it turns out, despite A's smile in the photo.

Next up was a ride on the Bamboo Train.  Railroad tracks were built by the French colonists in the 1930s.  The tracks haven't really been maintained since the colonists left Cambodia inthe 1950s.  Today the single-line tracks are used by a makeshift "train" car called a Nori made from two wheels, a military tank axle, a bamboo platform and a small gasoline engine (a la a lawnmower).  The axels and wheels are placed on the tracks and the bamboo platform rests on top of the axles (no fasteners at all).  The engine is connected to the axle by a rubber belt.  These contraptions barrel along at nearly 20 mph.  Some parts of the rail line are still used for transporting rice, people, and livestock on these same platforms.  This section is open for tourists.

On the Bamboo Train!

The fascinating aspect of the Bamboo Train is what happens when two "trains" in opposing directions meet.   Normally a rail line would have turnouts and signals.  Not here.  The platform with the lightest load (or the fewest people) must dismantle itself to allow the other platform to pass.

First remove the platform

Then take the axles off the tracks.

Set everything off to the side to allow the other "train" to pass.  Then reassemble.

Along the way we saw several Nori drivers beside the tracks in a group grilling meat and drinking beer.  In fact one driver hitched a ride on our nori from our starting point to join the party.

Excellent spot for some beers and grilled meat.

While leaving the Bamboo train, we encountered a tuk tuk full of extremely happy and friendly children.  They all waved and said "Hello" (the single English word known by 100.0% of the world's population).  C proposed a high five to them.  Initially confused, they figured it out before long.

Happy kids in a tuk tuk waving and blowing kisses.

Happy kids learning how to "high five." Moments like this are true  highlights of this trip.

The final site we visited in the Battambang are is an old house from the French colonial period.  The granddaughter of the original owner still lives there and offers tours to tourists.  She speaks French but not English. so she gave us a tour in French.  I think we understood approximately as much as we would have if she had spoken to our guide in Khmer and the guide translated for us.  The house was seized by the Khmer Rouge and used as a communal kitchen to feed 100 people at a time.  After the Khmer Rouge ended, the house was (miraculously, in our opinion) returned to its original owner.

Old French house.  100 people were fed underneath during the Khmer Rouge.

Demonstration of a machine to separate the chaff from the rice.