Sua S'dei From Battambang

I've figured out to say hello in Khmer, it is "Sua S'dei". Having a fabulous time in Battambang! It is much different than Siem Reap. Siem Reap is much more of a "destination" travel location. Battambang is less aimed at tourism, and more just straight up Cambodian. Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia with a population of 140,000 people. It is set on the Stung Sangker (Sangker River). Although the town is a bit crumbly, the architecture of many of the buildings is beautiful French colonial style.

Yesterday's adventures: I met another traveller named Robert who has been travelling for 4 years straight all over the world. Probably about 4 decades older than me. He is from California and all the sudden decided he wanted to sell everything and get away from it all. A nice guy, although a bit of a contradictory person in some ways. Has been following the path of Buddhism for some years now and trying to become enlightened I think. Although he made it very clear that he sold his collection of 800 bottles of wine, according to him some of the best in the world, for $16,000. Anyway, makes for an interesting travel partner. We decided to team up for an adventure around Battambang. Went to the (awesome!!) market in the morning and got food for a day in the country including pomello, dragonfruit, pineapple, grapes, diferent sorts of Cambodia pickles and kimchi stuff, baguettes, sticky rice with coconut and black beans wrapped in banana leaves, and another sticky rice dessert. We packed our food and hired 2 moto drivers for the day's adventures. Our first stop was to be Wat Banan, a temple ruin set on the top of a hill about 40 km from the city. The temple was fairly unspectacular, but the drive out to the temple was phenomenal!! Battambang is a good place to explore surrounding countryside. So beautiful! It didn't take long for us to get out of the city, bouncing along on pot holed mud roads. The Cambodian countryside:
-Many of the traditional style houses are set on stilts. I asked my moto driver about this, and he said it is because of flood waters, also so that families have a extra space under their house. Many families I saw had kitchens, small stores, benches, and hammocks set up under their houses. It seems sort of like a yard in the US, and the Nepali version of the roof top: your own little personal space.
-Lots of kids running around!! The Cambodian kids are so wonderful! Not to say that all kids aren't wonderful, but it is nice that they are just friendly and do not ask for money and pens and candy automatically.
-One thing I noticed was that there are lots of almost frighteningly thin children running around, and alot of protruding bellies, the sign of malnutrition. I am not sure if there is not enough food or what, or if they are just naturally thin. I think they are naturally thin, and they work incredibly hard doing all sorts of manual labor, and there may not be quite enough good nutritious food like protein and such. I have noticed a higher amount of alarmingly thin children here than I did in Nepal. There may be more malnutrition here, another possibility is that I may just notice it more here because it is hotter and more humid, therefore the children wear less clothes, no shirts, or no clothes at all.
-Monks. On the ride to the temple I saw lots of young monks clad in bright orange!! The bright orange seems to suit the Cambodian monks. I am used to monks wearing deep red, as they did in my monastery and all over Nepal. When ever I saw the monks they were standing infront of a hut, in a row of three holding bowls. I asked my moto driver what they were doing, and he said they were recieving alms. They walk around with bowls and the people of the villages come out and give them scoops of rice or other food in their bowls. So the monks are pretty much supported by the community, since they do not work.
-Petrol stations. I love these! They are not so much stations as metal racks with 10 to 20 empty whiskey bottles filled with petrol. We stopped for refueling one time at one of these stations. The lady who owned the "station" brought us a liter of petrol in the whiskey bottle and filled the tank through a rusty funnel.
-Food stalls. In the country side people set up tables with all sorts of Cambodian food on them. I am not quite sure what any of it is, but it all looks good!!
-Hammocks. This is one thing I really love, the number of people who are swinging about in hammocks. You will see these all over the place!! Hanging under stilted houses, between palm trees, in the middle of someone's tiny store.
-Tropical. Cambodia is a very tropical place. All sorts of tropical palm trees, mango trees, pineapple bush things, dragonfruit trees, etc... It is very lush and green. The first few days I was here in Cambodia I kept feeling like this place was environmentally more like what I have seen of the country in Mexico than Nepal. It is much more flat than I am used to. The environment is similar to the lowland tropical parts of Nepal, like around Pokhara. So it is similar in a way. It is as if someone took a hot iron and flattened the tropical part of Nepal.
-On the way to Wat Banan temple my moto driver stopped to show me a garmet "factory" in the countryside. Actually, it is a few wooden looms under a stilted house. The women there make scarves. I explored around the house, and climbed the steep steps to look inside. There was one big room. My moto driver told me that Cambodian houses have only one room, and everybody sleeps together in the room. I was watching one woman make a scarf on the loom, pumping the wooden pedals and shooting this thing with string on it from side to side. Wow!! Really cool. Then the ladies decided it would be fun to teach me how to do it. So they sat me down on one of the looms, and showed me how to pump the pedals, and shoot the wooden thing with the string across. It is all much harder than it looks. One of the Cambodian ladies stood behind me with her hand on mine to show me the moves, while I pumped and pulled at the loom, shooting the bobbin (is that the word?) across at all the wrong times. I of course failed miserably at weaving and the wooden thing was flying all over the place and getting stuck in the other strings.

Anyway, Wat Banan, as I said was not alright. After Angkor Wat, it wasn't as interesting. But still, there are nice views of the Cambodian countryside from the top. I was off taking a picture of this huge pond covered with flowers, and a huge snake slithered by!! It gave me quite a fright!
After the temple we had our picnic of food.
Next stop the bamboo train! More scenic driving through the countryside. The bamboo train is this platform about 5 feet by 8 feet made of bamboo poles. At the back of the platform is a small motor, which I think comes from a motorbike. The bamboo train is set up on the train tracks and shuttles locals around short distances up and down the tracks. I was not going to ride it, just because I didn't feel like paying the tourist price, but I worked a deal with the "conductor" to let me pay the local price so I ran and hopped on just as it was chugging away! So there were about 8 of us sitting on this bamboo platform rolling down the bumpy train tracks through intensely green rice fields and gorgeous countryside. It was very bumpy, but made up for the bumpyness in fun. Quite an adventure! The ride one way is about 20 minutes. I was wondering what we would do if the real train actually came chugging toward us down the tracks. I made my escape plan to roll off, just incase. At the end of one way, the bamboo train is disassembled and taken of the tracks and turned around to go back. On the way back I was riding with 2 locals who had pilled the bamboo platform with bales of hay and coconuts. After about 10 minutes... traffic jam! Another bamboo train was coming the other way!! What to do... Since there were only 3 of us on our bamboo train we were the ones who had to disassemble. So we all hopped off, unloaded the bales of hay and coconuts, took our platform and wheels off the tracks and let the other train pass. After it and another train had passed, we reassembled and got back on. I highly recommend the bamboo train. It is another good way to see the countryside.