Battambang
http://au.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-a6zLd1M9bqXYFufi8VqDDClTLg--?cq=1
After our 7 day pass for Angkor ran out, and after we’d seen pretty much all there was to see of Siem Reap we decided to head to Battambang, which is supposed to be famous for National Georgraphic worthy scenery and their Bamboo Train.
We were supposed to leave on the 14th, but because I had fallen sick I couldn’t get out of bed, let alone make it to a bus for a 6 hour trip. So we re-booked the bus for the next day hoping that I would be well enough in the morning to make it. Morning came, and even though I was still feeling under the weather we headed on out to the bus… which is actually a bus from wherever you’re staying to the actual bus that takes you to your destination. Turns out we had some pretty good seats, in between the wheels, but when we boarded the bus, the stuard decided that we needed more “leg room” and placed us at the back of the bus… yep, the back seat.
Now, when you’re 14 and in high school this is THE coolest place to sit on the bus… but when you’re 25 and sick from food poisoning or God knows what, the back of the bus is the WORST place to be. Couple that with a road from Siem Reap to Battambang that is so filled with pot holes it shouldn’t be legal to use… and you can bet your life you’ll be in for the best fun park ride you’ve EVER been on. I’m am pretty confident that I got air out of my seat on more than one occasion and Byron started to make cracks about wishing we had seat belts because we were afraid we would get thrown around so much from the bumpy ride, get launched down the isle of the bus and smash head first through the front wind shield. Good news is that even though it was becoming evident that it was a very likely possibility, the pot hole we’d land in would be big enough for the both of us and the bus would bounce straight over it and miss us completely!! But we actually could not have guessed that the ride would be as treacherous as it was, because we decided to take some motion sickness tablets…. Which made for a veeeery interesting ride… very “bouncy and floaty”... those motion sickness tablets sure do get you high… and they also make you reeaaaaally sleepy. So if you can piece all of that together you can imagine what it would have been like for 6 hours. Who needs drugs when you have a bus, some crater-like pot holes and some motion sickness tablets?!
Anyhoo, we eventually arrived in Battambang and checked into the Chheya Hotel where B had something to eat and I crashed out from feeling so terrible. Later on I felt like I could finally eat so we checked out the trusty travel bible (Lonely Planet) and picked out the only place that sounded even remotely appealing… the Balcony Bar. It was a nice wooden place set on the river front with palms and geckos everywhere and some great food. Apparently it’s the bar that Angelina Jolie frequented when she was staying in Battambang, so it was kinda cool in a way to wonder where she sat and what she ordered.
The bar is actually run by a guy from Melbourne named John and we chatted with him for about an hour about various things. He’s married to a Khmer lady and has lived in Battambang for 5 years. He originally was invited to work in a bar and eventually decided to set up his own, but he teaches at the local school for a day job… and he can down Anchor beer like a true Aussie. Not so surprising, after being here all this time John tells us he still cannot pick up the language, and pretty much gets by with broken English and a few Khmer phrases. That made us feel a whole lot better because if he’d been there for 5 years and still hadn’t picked it up then our 3 weeks of struggle is nothing.
So with our bellies full and me feeling a little better we got up the next morning, which was to be our only full day in town and hired two moto drivers for a tour of Battambang. This is where all the dust and crap decided to take up residence in my eyes and when the day was over I could barely see anything. But during the day we had a pretty good tour. It started with a massive ride out to the countryside where Phnom Sampeau is located. During the war (Khmer Rouge times) it was used as a base for the government’s defence and to reach it you trek straight up the hill on a marked path. I feel terrible for saying it, but I am honestly tired of seeing “killing fields”..... and that, with a few Wat’s and Stupa’s, is what is at the top of the mountain. More skulls and bones and clothes of people thrown into caves as a cruel way of execution by the Khmer Rouge. Don’t get me wrong, I feel every bit of empathy for the souls of those murdered, but my conscious cannot take anymore heartache.
On the way down I was becoming more and more exhausted that by the time we had ridden to the next temple, Wat Banan, I took one look at the massive staircase leading up the mountain and came to the decision that if I was to climb those stairs I would collapse at the top, and chose not to go up, so B went alone. Apparently I didn’t miss much because it’s an 11th century ruin, inspired by Angkor Wat, and from the pictures B showed me, a popular make out spot with the locals. B showed me a picture he took of a guy with his girl.. and he wanted B to take a photo of himself with his arm around her but she wouldn't hear of it.. it's hilarious to look at her pulling away from him in the photos B took.
The day was getting on a bit so we headed out to catch the infamous Bamboo Train back into Battambang, but not before we detoured through the countryside, got lost, got told we were going the wrong way by an annoyed old woman, and visited a Wat where the surrounding trees are home to hundreds of fruit bats. I’m not entirely certain as to why our moto drivers would think fruit bats to be an attraction westerners would have a desire to see, but the fact that B’s moto driver found a recently deceased fruit bat, opened it up to show us, checked it out for any visible rotting, decided it looked fine, and popped it in the basket of his moto to take home to eat was worth every second!! Apparently it’s a delicacy!! Yummo. They however, didn’t see anything wrong with telling us the bat had died from a disease and had fallen out of the tree…. they were going to eat it!
The Bamboo Train was a little weird and I wasn’t feeling the best at this point. It’s located right next to a brick factory so there is rock and ash in the wind and a massive storm was brewing which was stiring up all the ash. This is where I suspect the problem with my eyes became worse. But more on that later. The Bamboo Train (Norry) is basically a set of rickety looking tracks that may or my not have been “borrowed” permanently from an actual train line, laid on uneven ground on metal sleepers and built up on a mound through the rice paddy’s and picturesque countryside. The train itself consists of two sets of wheels, a small engine and a platform to sit on which rests atop the wheels. As we watched them put it together I wondered to myself what our drivers were going to do, whether or not they’d ride back and meet us in Battambang or if we paid them here and they finished for the day… just as I was making a decision about my thoughts they uploaded the first moto onto the train…. Yep… both motos came along for the ride as well as a few kids. We started up and headed along for about a minute before a train coming from the other way forced us to stop so they could continue…
It was a nice ride getting to see the landscape, and as it started to rain I regretfully had to put away the camera because the storm had set in and it was way too wet and windy to brave keeping it out, so I didn’t manage to get a lot of photo’s from the ride… and lucky it was away too, because when we came across some kids who had purposely put another train on the tracks to block our path, our driver had to get out and take it apart himself so we could continue on, and as we headed on, the ring leader of the group threw a lit cigarette at me… I tell ya kidlets… it took every ounce of will power I posses not to jump off the train, run after him and slap him over the head with my camera… so it’s lucky it was put away because of the rain. The driver told us he’s an orphan and has no discipline and will turn out to be a bad man. Strange that he hangs out with a family that lives by the side of the tracks but no one seems to care enough to “discipline” him. So he just goes around putting rocks on the tracks to try and de-rail the trains and block the path with other trains while throwing lit cigarettes at people. Charming. Can’t say I felt sorry for that one. I wish I did, but my compassion and patience was being completely challenged at that point.
Our tour ended back in central Battambang and eventually it was time for dinner, so we ate at The Cold Night Restaurant at the recommendation of my moto driver and it was actually quite nice. They have a tame, un-caged parrot that begs for peanuts and a few dogs that scavenge for food and even though it seems to be set in the backwater part of town it’s actually a pretty nice place to eat and when you’re craving pepper steak and an obscure restaurant in an obscure place has an even more obscure menu, you’d better grab at the chance because it won’t come by again…
By the time we got back to our room my eyes were so sore and swollen that they had actually started to close, particularly my left one. No amount of bathing or rinsing them helped and I ended up in the bathroom exhausted, stressed, and emotional if not only to see if crying actually helped expel whatever was lodged in my eyes. By morning my left eye had completely fused shut and when I pried it open I could barely see… and that’s my camera eye!!!!! ( I am left eyed). So the bus trip back to Phnom Penh was also pretty awful because I couldn’t see properly and it was causing some major pain. I had no idea eyes could suffer such pain. When we arrived at the Angkor International Hotel in Phnom Penh the woman with the odd sounding accent that owned it told me I looked to be in terrible pain and suggested I go to the hospital to have my eyes looked at. So she organised their Taxi to take me to a local eye hospital where they charged me $10US (apparently locals get charged $1US, but with the pain I was in, I would have paid anything, so 10 bucks was nothing to me and we got to jump the line and ge looked at straight away) to have them cleaned and treated and it cost another 4 to pick up the prescribed eye drops which have done wonders. The amount of crap that came out of my eyes was amazing… and it was great to be able to see again. It closed up again for the next couple of nights but it was a lot better. It turns out that the owner of the Angkor International Hotel went to Australia as a refugee during the Khmer Rouge and lived there for 30 years, which explained the accent I had found so strange earlier. Once she had told us she had lived in Australia I could hear the accent in certain words she pronounced, particularly her a’s. It was like a mix of Khmer and Aussie... very odd.
In the morning we were to head out to the airport to catch our flight to Viet-nam and as we packed out things and prepared to leave I took an extra look around because it’s was possibly the last time I’ll be in Cambodia. It’s been good and it’s been bad, and even thought there were a few select incidences of people being horrible I believe the Khmer people to be the most welcoming, warm and friendly people I have ever met and I will take the image of their smiling faces with me.. and everytime I am confronted with a horrible person, I will think of the Khmer.
So… there you have it… not a great story but a story nonetheless.
Battambang was okay but I wish we had have gone to Sihanoukville instead and been able to lounge around on the beach instead of writhing in pain and putting up with crap in my eyes. Maybe next time…
posted by Lucyspeak @ 4:46 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home