Although secretly we are a trio a of soap dodgers, we eschewed the thought of a $6 each bouncing soap dodger bus and chose instead a $60 bouncing taxi for the 170 kms journey by road to Battambang. We saved a couple of hours time too so worth every cent.... We leave Siem Reap reluctantly and could have stayed longer, but the Swanley Travel itinerary was calling! We travel out of the town along the airport road which was still looking pristine following the big clean it had had a couple of days earlier before Michelle Obama had speedily travelled into town along it.
Battambang has long been on our to do list for Cambodia. Perhaps arriving Sunday afternoon when most places were closed didn't help but we found we had to search hard to find the "leafy, dreamy city with examples of colonial French architecture strung along a lazy river snaking through the town" that we were promised by Wanderlust. We were also promised "art and soul in Cambodia" by the Guardian and they told us it was the cutting edge of Cambodia's new art scene. We were looking forward to small trendy cafes and restaurants hiding the best artists Cambodia could offer.
Hmmmm.... Our first explorations had us searching amongst closed up by iron gates shophouses built in the 60's and holding our noses whilst we stood on the broken paving peering down at the bright green muddy string of water posing as the Sangkae River below. We had checked in to the Delux Villa, another piece of 60's Khmer architecture but this one at least was in a good way. It was built to take the overflow from the Royal Guest House so we felt quite regal. So clean and recently refurbished, nice although full of the hard, highly varnished, ornately carved, dark wood furniture so loved in this part of the world. The breakfasts were a sight to behold. Each person has a fruit plate with enough to manage your five a day for a week and the following continental breakfast was a carb fest we challenge anyone to eat. French toast, pancakes, French bread, croissant and other white flour delights covered every inch of the huge plates. I know we are all slightly larger than your average Cambodian but..... But still desperate to find a decent lunch and having a "nose" for these things we did manage to sniff out the best restaurant in town, actually from what we could see, the only usable restaurant in town, the Jaan Bai where we discovered the best orange gin fizzes ever - oh and some rather good food. It's another of those places you often find out here that trains disadvantaged young Cambodian's in the art of hospitality.
But things looked up on Monday as the city sort of came back to life after the weekend and we commandeer a tuk tuk for a tour round the countryside to see the must see sights of Battambang, it didn't take long..... We first stop to admire a big roundabout... It did have a huge statue of the man who founded Battambang in the middle with little temples to worship him. In ancient times he had a magic stick that he could use to control 200 cattle. One day he lost his stick and now the town is called "Lost Stick". We feel something of the romance of the story in the explanation by the tuk tuk driver may have been lost in translation...
Cambodia does actually have a rail network but the thing that Richard Branson may find unusual is that there are no actual trains on the track. The station in Battambang stands deserted with the clock stuck forever awaiting for the 8.02 to Phnom Penh. But one local train, the bamboo train does keep going so we search it out - it's one of the world's all-time classic rail journeys albeit another bouncing Battambang journey. From O Dambong, on the east bank 3.7km south of Battambang's Old Stone Bridge, the train runs southeast to O Sra Lav, via half an hour of clicks and clacks along warped, misaligned rails and vertiginous bridges left by the French. Each bamboo train - known in Khmer as a norry (nori ) - consists of a 3m-long wood frame, covered lengthwise with slats made of ultra-light bamboo, that rests on two barbell-like bogies, the back one connected by fan belts to a 6HP engine. Pile on 10 or 15 people or up to three tonnes of rice, crank it up and you can cruise along at about 15km/h. The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the problem faced on any single-track line: what to do when two trains going opposite directions meet. In the case of bamboo trains, the answer is simple: one train is quickly disassembled and set on the ground beside the tracks so the other can pass. The rule is that whichever car has fewer passengers has to give way, though motorbikes pull rank, so if you bring one along - or have a convincing inflatable moto decoy - you'll get VIP treatment. We had to disassemble our train only once. It's great fun and we did a return journey having to close our eyes quite a lot as it wobbled over the bridges. Also we had running repairs on the way, the simple fan belt structure kept breaking but we got back in the end.
We then move on to some more Angkorian temples, but this one, Ek Phnom, is on top of a huge set of steep steps on a hill. Ant took one for the team and climbed up, David and I declined but sent our cameras... At least my excuse was I already had twelve days of ruins under my belt and David's excuse, although wimpy, did produce the quote of the trip again - "I am so hot I could cry"!
We then move on to Battambang's answer to the Killing Fields, the Killing Caves, Phnom Sampeau, a temple and caves where the Khmer Rouge dumped the bodies of the many people they killed in that area. One cave for children, another for adults... a sobering experience. The route there was across country through dry, dusty rice paddies who look desperate for the rainy season to start. We left behind a huge cloud of dust everywhere as we bounced along on the dykes separating the dry paddies. When we arrive a problem was that said cave was half way up a mountain, it was 35 degrees in the shade and there wasn't much of that. So we again take the "easy option" and commandeer a rusty jeep like a group of Khmer Rouge on the rampage.
On a more serious note, the cave is located halfway up a mountain which is dotted with beautiful wats, statues, and lookout points over the village below. Macaque monkeys roam the mountainside. Stairways snake up the mountain and back down again into limestone caves and canyons. One of these caves is the Killing Cave itself. The descent on slippery steps down into the cave is quite beautiful – the rock is covered in green vegetation and low-hanging vines. The cave is quite large inside, and a huge golden Buddha reclines in the centre. But at the bottom of the stairway sits a chicken-wire cage full of human bones. To the right is another memorial of human remains, these are in a glass box. These are the bones of the doctors, teachers, men, women and children killed by the Khmer Rouge here. At the top of the cave is the natural skylight which the Khmer Rouge marched people to, lining them up, then bludgeoning them and letting their bodies fall into the cave.Today a mix of mostly Cambodian tourists mill around the cave, and people sing and take pictures. It is a surprisingly jovial atmosphere considering the horror of what took place. But apparently Cambodians feel joy is the best way to move past tragedy.
Drained, we head miles back into Battambang bouncing along in our tuk tuk, covered in dust but looking forward to a refreshing orange gin fizz at our favoured Jaan Bai. At this point David, closely followed by Gill then produced the most disappointed facial expression of the trip when we realise our favoured watering hole was closed on Mondays... We ended up in Lotus, a Guardian recommended art space and cafe restaurant. If the art was as bad as the food they certainly wouldn't sell much...
When we were in Siem Reap we were so busy we didn't find the time to go to Tripadvisor's No 1 recommendation, the Phare Circus - not the animal kind but more modern performing art. But in Battambang they have their training school so we spend an hour in the evening in the small big top watching some pretty clever dancing, balancing and cirque de soleil type stuff. After the excitement of the circus we wanted some food. As we had already discovered this was easier said than done in Battambang but we ask our tuk tuk to take us to a highly recommended one. It looked a bit iffy as we drew up so we had to ask the driver to speed up saying "don't stop, don't stop", the poor Cambodian owners who had stood up to welcome us looked all a bit confused as we speeded up like escaping bank robbers...
So our jam packed day in Battambang comes to a close as we pack our little cases to move on to the big city, Phnom Penh.
