Battambang oh Battambang.
 
 
Battambang is lovely. Quiet, sleepy, not yet found by the tourist trail. It does have a schizophrenic history - and very recent one to boot. Battambang is still one of the last vestiges of the Khymer Rouge - they say that many KR fled to these mountains/hills and it was the place to last find any peace. The shellings only stopped in 1998. Still lots of land mines around. KR were arrested here for war crimes only in 2007. The quiet facade covers a bloody past - it was one of the first places to be targeted by Pol Pot in 1975 as it has many universities and had an educated community of agricultural specialists and was thriving. When Pol Pot started the genocide on his own people in 1975, he rounded up everyone educated, everyone with glasses, all foreigners and all leaders. Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, even though it feels like a small town, and you can actually notice a whole generation missing. Most people my age and a little older were killed during 1975 and 1976, and the rest were marched to the country side to work in work camps to build a new communist Cambodia. Although over 25% of the population was killed in those 4 years, it was disproportionately men who were either executed or died of malnutrition or illness in the fields. All the doctors and teachers were executed so there was no help for the sick. It is amazing that this country, with its horrific history, can be so gentle and forgiving. Even the 20 somethings - most who grew up in refugee camps in Thailand, are happy and laughing and squeaking out a living with real joy.
I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with Rich - a 28 year old who grew up in one of those UN camps. Through him I met other moto drivers who were happy to tell me about their own histories. They all want to provide for their families, want to get enough money for the future. Everyone I spoke to said they want to be able to plan, not just live day to day.
I rented Rich and his bike for my first day in Battambang. Since they have so few tourists and their sites are out in the countryside, and the roads are nearly impossible by car, motorbikes are really the only alternative. I told him I was Templed out and wanted to see where people live and where they make stuff. I love that - love factories, love that "how do they make that?" show, loved the last book I read "Where do underpants come from?"" - a study on modern China - fun read.....anyway, what a day we had. Dirty, dusty, bumpy and fabulous. He took me in and out of villages - to where they make sticky rice inside bamboo shoots - cooked slowly over a fire for two hours needing constant rolling, to the fish village that processes all those fishes from the fish farms, to a big family that makes rice noodles - OMG what an incredible amount of work to make one plate of noodles. They make about two bowls of noodles at a time so multiply that by how many bowls are eaten across Asia!!!!! Yowser!!! and then to a rice paper factory where girls make rice wrappers for spring rolls - one at a time. I tell you - seeing the work that goes into food here makes me not want to eat. First - you see everything being killed just after you order it - no s*** - give me M and M's anytime. I love that place cause it does not look like it ever lived to me. Come on - chicken burgers there have no memory of real chickens to me. Hey Christa and Vel - pretty good plug!!!! How is the M and M world in Vernon?. I will come by for some individually wrapped burgers that do not remind me of very skinny cows who are living under stilted houses......anyhow I digress. Battambang - loved it. Met some real characters here as well. Had dinner the first night with two guys - one Brit and one Dane who had just ridden in after a week in the jungle on motorbikes - bushwhacking trails and climbing mountains and crossing rivers and falling off alot. They were wild men. Then the next day hooked up with three German guys who had been on the boat - each one traveling by themselves and two of them found out they came from neighboring towns. We had breakfast and dinner the next day. I rented Rich again - the Deutchers were too afraid to go out on bikes so they had to stick with a tuk tuk that could only go a little way on the brutal dirt roads. I gave them the gears for all of that. Lots of fun teasing about German engineering and all round uptightedness.  
Day two on the bikes we went up into the mountains where the crops of oranges and pineapples and mangos and papayas and potatoes and other stuff are grown with the help of sophisticated irrigation systems. I wondered if perhaps these canals were built by hand during that Pol pot regime???
Rich speaks English very well - had studied it for years when he has enough money for lessons, lives at home and gives his parents his paycheck - that is expected - to contribute however you can as he is the oldest with many siblings and his dream is to be a tour guide. He hasn't even been to Siem Reap or Phonm Penh - 5 hours each from Battambang on a $3.50 bus. We are all so fortunate. One of his buddies - in the photo, also perfect English, was a teacher until he got married and had a baby - now drives tuk tuk or moto because he can no longer afford to teach at $40 month. I dropped a lot of money in Battambang - not by our standards but for the backpacker standard - yup and it was good and appreciated. The two days on the bike - we did about 300 km over completely wild dirt roads and lanes and paths was so much fun it would be impossible to put a price on. That was even without the Bamboo Train!!!!
 
The Bamboo Train is one of the world's greatest train trips in my book. What a wild ride and I am so fortunate as I understand they may be taking it away pretty soon to build some 'real'tracks. I was thinking of my most recent train journeys - last fall from Guelph to NYC and the summer before we took the bullet train from Paris to Lausanne Switzerland and then the overnight from Lausanne to Rome. This short little train blew those out of the water.

The train works like this - it is a light bamboo platform, run by a motorcycle engine and a belt thing. There is one old track and it is used for both directions. If you are on the train and another train is coming at you - one has to get off - by disassembling their train, to let the other one pass. They just grab the platform - chuck it to the side, disconnect the engine from the two sets of wheels that go on the track and wait for the other guys to pass. There are no rules....

We got to the track, loaded our motorcycle onto the train, the kids put out a mat for me to sit on "first class"they said and then they put the engine on....the engine refused to start - all the neighborhood kids came around to see why and offer advice, we changed engines and finally sputtered along. The track is very old, not straight and has many breaks in it. When you are flying along you don't feel the breaks as much as when you are going slow. Because of the wobbles in the track - it really feels like an old wooden roller coaster. We were whipping along when I saw another car approaching. I think out driver yelled about our motor - didn't want to stop, so the huge family on the oncoming car - about 15 of them, got off and disassembled their train and let us go by. Whipping along again, people in the houses next to the tracks all waving. In Battambang - kids would see me on the bike and run for the lane to yell Hi and Bye. Lots of waving and huge smiles from both kids and their parents...not a lot of tourists in these parts!! Anyway, I was laying down trying to capture the pure joy by taking a photo of my lovely feet as I rambled down the track when I hear -Get off!!!! Get off NOW. They are faster and they have COWS!!!!!! I could see the train approaching at a fast speed but did not see the cargo until we slowed down and they slowed, I jumped off and saw, yes indeed, they had two live cows, laying down, strapped to the little bamboo platform. The cows actually looked liked they were enjoying themselves....OK - I told myself that is what they were thinking. Anyhow, it was hilarious. a lifetime memory. The next carload was a group of kids on their way to school, bikes piled high and they had stalled and were taking turns trying to start the pull motor and cracking each other up. There is a lot of humor here and teasing. Lots of joy. I hope you can get a little idea from these pics of this experience. Hurray if you want to experience it yourself.!!!!