Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia after Phnom Penh, but it doesn't feel it. It straddles the river that we travelled down, and has some old colonial buildings and a village feel to it. This was the disused Art Deco style railway station which they are trying to get back into use again, with Australian monetary help.
These were the old engine sheds, now with people squatting in them.
And the former Governors Mansion... What a contrast
We went on the Bamboo Train, an exhilarating ride along old buckled tracks on a bamboo cart, which when one comes the other way they just dismantle and lift off the tracks!
Some of the tracks had seen better days... This was a bridge
The end of the line
And the kids....
They made this wonderful reed grasshopper!
The local headgear...
Then our tuk tuk driver took us for lunch. Sticky rice from the roadside caf, where all the locals buy. Rice, coconut water and black beans, cooked in the bamboo container on charcoal for several hours, then the burned outer shell of the bamboo is sliced off leaving the container which can be peeled open.
Delicious, eaten straight from the bamboo....,
He then took us to the local Killing Fields in Battambang. They are all over Cambodia..... He told us his personal story. He is now 58 but when he was 19 the Khmer Rouge came to power and spread panic, terror, torture, famine and destruction throughout the country, for 4 bloody years. They killed between 1-2 million people through starvation, disease, torture and execution. He knows from talking to neighbours much later that both his parents were killed as they told him they saw them die, but he never found out what happened to his brother and sister. At one point he was interrogated and told to write in Khmer.... He said he wrote with his left hand and only did three sentences. He told them that was all he could write as he had only had 2 years of education, and after some very tense moments they told him to go. He actually could write and speak both English and French, but if they had found that out he would have been killed. He also changed his name as he feared that they would look for him as he knew his family had been caught and they always traced all members of a family to kill them, including children. He then escaped into the jungle and joined the army to fight against the regime, and somehow managed to survive.
This was the memorial of the killing fields in Battambang...
When we arrived the local children were playing tag around it.... A happier generation than those that went before.....
He then took us to see how they make the rice paper for spring rolls...... A family run business. They mix the rice flour by hand in a large bowl over a flame, then spread the mixture over a skin to create the circle, which is then put on a rack to dry in the sun.
The Memorial shown earlier read....
And the wonderful Cambodians are indeed restoring their beautiful land. I love Cambodia!
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