Battambang, Cambodia

Boat trip to Battambang
A well known route for travelers leaving Siem Reap is via the Sangker River and a 9 hour scenic boat ride to a small French colonial town of Battambang. With promises of seeing true rural life here, we cheerfully made our way to the docks and our pickup point 30km or so from Siem Reap. It's true to say the journey was indeed scenic, but the ride itself was definitely a little on the rough side. We and a few other tourists had basically been put onto a transport boat which was also being used by the locals and for this reason we prepared ourselves for an interesting journey.



Sure enough, we saw the true Cambodian rural life. It seems the river is the source of pretty much all of the day-to-day life. Houses, hand built, either float on sheet after sheet of bamboo or other wood (all with TV ariels I noticed!). Some on wooden stilts just high enough to avoid the high water during the wet season, and some even making a home out of their tatty boats, extending the back to make extra living spaces. All have been built with materials that have been either scavenged, or the wood taken from fields.



We saw the river being used to transport goods and services to the other locals, creating their own little micro-economy, presumably based on exchange of goods in addition to purchases with money. On a rest stop we also got a first hand look at the people also using the river as their means to wash: dishes, themselves, number 1 and number 2 (!), and use it as their household waste bin... A little alarming since many a child was carelessly splashing around in the water, clearly enjoying themselves in the process. Yuk!



We were traveling on the river during the dry season, and as such, water levels caused delays in the journey due to ad-hoc steering around shallow patches and the occasional in-situ repair of the vessel. We had one such repair which I think was due to a propeller blade being damaged due to the shallow water. We came upon a village, stopped by a workshop and it was immediately fixed and welded back on to the axle, whilst we were in boat!



It was a long and testing journey, as conditions were pretty cramped, but we're really glad to have seen the vast wide open flood planes and the kind of life that is lived by so many here. I had never quite seen anything like it before.

Battambang
Glad to arrive in Battambang, we made our way to the hotel and took the rest of the evening really easy. Navita and I lucked out on a deluxe room for the price of a basic room, can't complain!



We decided to spend a full day here and check out one or two of the local attractions. Actually, this ended up being a more informative and somewhat humbling experience than we had expected. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day who also doubled as a knowledgeable guide of the area, and he took us to see some interesting Buddhist temples and told of how Hinduism and Buddhism feature in modern Cambodian lives.



We got taken to a home where rice paper, what you make spring rolls from, was made using traditional techniques and saw a rather unusual 'bamboo train' used to run to and from the next town on worn and warped old French railway tracks. The train is assembled and disassembled in minutes and consists of a lightweight bamboo platform with a 6HP engine bolted on!





As it transpires, our tuk tuk driver had actually lived through the Khmer Rouge regime when he was a boy. Navita and I were aware of this dark part of Cambodian history, 1975 to 1979, but were preparing to learn more in Phnom Penh. Our driver, took us to a memorial monument to those who were executed by the regime in killing fields and laid to rest in mass graves which the memorial had been built on. He told us harrowing stories of his time during the regime and how he was the only member of his family to survive. It was our first glimpse into the Khmer Rouge, and having it explained by someone who experienced torture, siblings and parents being slain, and made to work as a slave, we felt quite humbled. What do you say to something like that?

Memorial building window openly showing bones and remains of mass execution victims.


Our time in Battambang was at an end, but we're glad to have visited. The next leg of our journey through Phnom Penh and Vietnam is going to be very different to anything we've both previously seen, as we learn about the Khmer Rouge regime and Vietnam war.