The Global Explorer: Trawling the Battambang countryside.

Battambang town lining the Sanker river turned out to be a great place to stay. Here be Dragons is a friendly, helpfull place-complete with hammocks, affordable beer and bar. It also happens to be a great place to meet people. Usually i do my eating at markets and the typical local roadside eateries-and you have a few stringed up along the east bank of the river. but this town have a couple of restaurants that made me take my dinners "high class". The two restaurants White Rose and Smoking Pot make delicious stuff to an affordable price. You even get enough to eat!

French era buildings adding a little character to parts of downtown.

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French era trainsheds-with a german couch from the 30'es rotting on a track.

But I didn't come there only to eat and drink. Instead i set out to burn an considerable amount of energy cycling. North of the town there is a maze of small countryside roads crisscrossing the landscape. I thought it to be great for meeting locals and observe the local way of life. The mainriver and the smaller sidestreams have several bridges. Also there are ferries a few places so getting from one side to another wasn't any problem, but i found my oasis to be mostly but not exclusively on the eastern side. There are few formal sights in that area. One worth seeking out is the well of shadows. A monument over Khmer Rouge victims. there are some very graphic murals there depicting how prisoners were treated. Like getting their heads cut off-with palmbranches. Surrounding the monument are 3 ponds-where the bodies were disposed. A building nearby functioned as the local torturecenter. Behind it-a closed temple. It was the prison.

There are many roadside industries to investigate. for the springroll enthusiast, a stop in Pheam Ek village is enlightening. Here most families make the ricepaper used as wrappings. It is a poorly paid enterprise. 100 sheets give them 5000 riel (1,25 USD). In this area you can also check out the making of sticky rice-rice boiled with coconutmilk in bambootubes. It is good food, and i often buy a tube when i need a take away.

Frying the riceporridge. the fire is fed with ricetusks.

Ricepaper drying in the sun. They have to be alert this time of year, when heavy rain sometimes starts with little warning.

Boiling sticky rice.

Another kind of food-farmed at the outskirt of Battambang.

A few kilometers out of town, near the river and a valuable bridge, my nose got beaten. It smelled somewhat like rotten fish-but it was the noble version of it. Here they make fishpaste and fishsauce. The fish is stored-fermented-in big trays for weeks before being mashed. A great way of destroying good fish, some might say. And the fish you can observe being caught in the river nearby-boats with long nets suspended into the water, slowly drifts down the river, sweeping in fish. Sort of the natural complement is a boatbuilding site a few hundred meters upriver from the bridge. There were several small, elegant beautifully built wooden vessels there when i visited. The ground littered with wooden parts of boats to come.

Fish drying in the sun.

The smelly fishpastefactory.

Recycling is actually big in Cambodia. scrapcollecting is the survival of many a poor cambodian.

A warning to the people-mess with drugs, and jail messes with you.

Just outside the smell zone, along a road along the river, is the place to get rehydrated. A local teahouse sits in the middle of the local commerce. For 2000 riel you get a big teapot-and for some reason also a glass of strong coffee. With all the sugar you need. In the middle of the day, this is a great place to cheat the heat. Locals flock here all day, making it great for peoplewatching and interaction. Food i had to find elsewhere-in the form of rice with banana steamed in leafs served roadside. Or should i say: trackside. Cheap, delicious and friendly.

Northeast of town i came to a small, treelined river in the middle of ricecountry. It was also lined with homes. As the crow flies it was only 10 kilometers from downtown Battambang, but it is an area that hardly ever see any tourists. It is not on any maps, and getting there involves tackling quite a bit of bumpy countrysideroads. For those going there-be prepared for the big-BIG-"HELLO-BYE-BYE fatigue. One sure do attract attention! People are very friendly, and curious. And it is a fascinating place to explore. When i was there it was riceharvest going on, so it was cutting, threshing, drying, and packing of rice everywhere. People were cooking. Children playing along the road. Despite being lined by tracks on both sides, the river itself was busy, with boats going in both directions-downriver with riceharvest. Upriver empty or with other cargo-like fishtraps or plastic tubes.

Boatbuilding. The big jars in the background are watejars. The poor mans cistern.

Going home.

The village flirt. She loved posing, and we gave her family a good laugh.

A cross river ferry.

A roadside blacksmith let me watch his work.

Why powercuts can be expected.

A shortcut. Even for motorcycles.

Strictly pedestrian.

Basic, but working.

The riceharvest carried home.

Playtime. no high tech.

Drying rice.

Battambang has a few must see-must do things. The bambootrain certainly is one of the special railtrips to be had. The bambootrain-called norry or lorry, is technically not a train at all. It is a single platform of metal and bamboo driven by a motorcycleengine. It is lightweight so it can be carried off the track when something come in the opposite direction. For the Battambang trains, tourism is important. But it is well used by locals at certain times of day-especially early in the morning when people and goods head for the markets in Battambang.

Norry waggons waiting trackside.

Ready for departure.

The track doesen't look too good. The norry was jumping and shaking and tilting in all directions.

Meeting locals. I was alone with my driver. They were two plus the driver. Numbers pull rank on the tracks.

Lifting away.

My driver.

West of town is Phnom Sampeau, another grizzly site of Khmer Rouge legacy. In a spectacular rockformation towering over the riceland, two caves was the final harbour for thousands of people. In one cave there is a big hole in the roof where the dead bodies were thrown from their execution above. I suspect many of them were not-so-dead when being thrown. Less grizzly is the daily spectacle nearby-approximately 10 million bats leave their cave every afternoon to go feeding. it is an endless river of bats passing over my head.

The bats leaving their cave at Phnom Sampeau. A moment i thought it started to rain. It wasn't rain-bats do pee and fly simultaneously. Taste unrecomended.