Battambang – Rhymes with Pete Tong
Booking the boat from Siem Reap to Battambang was a little bit of luxury. Or that was the plan, anyway. It cost three times as much, and took double the time, of the bus, but I’d heard amazing reviews of the journey, which goes down through the immense Tonle Sap lake. Good job, really, that the scenery turned out to be so lovely and fascinating, because the journey itself was very, very long and the boat was very, very crowded and had a propensity to break down very, very often. When we boarded the boat, it was just a group of foreigners on – a girl who looked like she was teaching in Cambodia, a German lady who I chatted to for a while, three other Brits (who I would later know to be Lucy, Julie and Mark), and a Canadian guy (Matt, although I didn’t get to know his name that day – our paths would later cross elsewhere in this country. There you go, a little bit of suspense to ensure you keep reading!) For a while it was just us, with the three guys who were sailing the boat. I suppose our first clue for the journey to come was when one of them picked up his saw, and started taking away chunks out of the bottom of the boat. Turned out there was another layer of wood underneath, but still, not the best way to get your passengers’ confidence levels up. With my track record for jinxed journeys, I felt guilty for not warning my fellow journeymen that we were likely to run into some trouble along the way. And we soon did.
Just after we passed our first set of floating villages – an amazing, surreal world where people carry on complete lives on the river – including shopping, going to church, and schools (wouldn’t like to know what detention is like there – treading water for an hour, maybe?), our boat slowly ground to a halt. There was much Khmer shouting and discussion amongst the three boatmen, until the youngest one – presumably the Cambodian Boat version of an office junior – stripped down to his underwear (small, tight and dark blue, for those of you who are interested in such details), and plunged into the filthy water. It was a bit disconcerting, to say the least, but after a bit of fine-tuning involving a sledgehammer and a new propeller, we were on our way again.
We started making multiple stops in the floating villages for people to get on board, and pretty soon the boat was full to capacity and was sitting low down in the water. The seats were wooden slats and, with no room for manouvre either way, I soon lost all feeling in my bum, back and legs. Obviously this wasn’t enough for some people. A local woman nigh on pushed me further up the bench, almost onto Mark’s knee (wouldn’t he be the lucky one), so she could LIE DOWN on the full-to-capacity bench. I did my best British tut, but shuffled up away from the scary lady anyway. I didn’t trust her not to haul me overboard plus (and this is what scared the bejeezus out of me), her toenails were really long and filed to a point and painted scarlet. I wasn’t getting anywhere near those bad boys, and was glad that her head was nearest to me. Be grateful for small mercies is my mantra. A teacher who I was talking to gave me half of his corn for breakfast (what? Stop looking at me like that, he pushed it into my hand, it’s not like I asked for it or made my ‘pitiful and hungry’ look in his direction. Much). Actually, it’s amazing here how the people are so willing, nigh on delighted, to share what they have, despite having so little by Western standards. Lovely people. Despite filling up on the corn, we stopped for lunch – every journey here, even a 2-hour one, involves a lunch stop. My kind of travelling – where most of the locals and I, the German lady, and The Person I Would Later Know As Matt (TPIWLKAM) (Hereafter shortened to ‘Matt’) ate rice and an unidentified but tasty meat.
The boat broke down again, and this time the poor junior didn’t even bother to strip down – he just plunged right in, and dove right under the boat for minutes at a time. Something to do with it belching out black smoke, but, on reflection, I’m kind of glad I didn’t fully understand what was going on. At any rate, I was soon distracted by a mini battle that was occurring opposite me, with Matt and a couple of locals; the battle of the awning. The boat had awning down both sides that was originally rolled up, so we could look at the view, but kept getting rolled down by presumably sun-and-scenery-weary locals. Matt was undeterred, and kept pushing it back up. Brave. I kept looking at the scary toenail lady next to me (now with her feet resting on my backpack), and decided to keep stum. They could have done some real damage.
Eight hours after we set off, we floated into Battambang, the second city in Cambodia, although it’s smaller – much, much, smaller – than my hometown. We were beseiged by moto drivers (the local taxis here are motorbikes), and, for the sake of an easy life, I got in a minibus going to one of the hotels. I was shown a room there but, for the sake of principle (also known as “cutting your nose of to spite your face”, a trait in which I excel), I decided to go to a different hotel down the road. After dragging my backpack up three flights of stairs, I didn’t have the heart to go back down, even though the room was, frankly, a hole. Still, it had a tv. And nylon, bug-infested sheets. A treat indeed!
The next day, I hosed off the bugs, and set out for a cooking course I had booked the day before. I haven’t cooked (apart from a similar course in India) since I’ve left, and I’m really, desperately missing it – it’s such an entrenched part of my daily routine that it’s yet another highlight of the temporary nature of life on the road. I’ve enjoyed Khmer food since I’ve been here – it’s similar to Thai, only far, far less spicy, which means that you can taste the other flavours, such as lemongrass, garlic, and ginger, unrivalled by too much chilli. That was where I met Lucy, Julie and Mark who were on the boat – they’d also booked on the course. We chose three dishes to cook (I’ll post the recipes at a later date), and were then taken to the market to buy the ingredients. To me, it seemed how shopping should be done – our guide went to different stalls for most of the ingredients, even though most things were sold in most places. The cooking went down a storm and, I’m happy to say, it was delicious – despite being full to the gills, we ravenously ate everything we cooked. In fact, we were so absorbed in the eating that we didn’t notice Lucy’s camera being stolen from right under our noses. This then led to a distinctly unpleasant couple of hours in the police station for her, and, more annoyingly, the loss of photos.
To cheer ourselves up, we went to some bar whose name escapes me, but involved some kind of lake, or river, or water, in the title. Our reason for going was that Angelina Jolie hung out there when she was in town, but she must have been too busy with the baby because she never showed. Not that she’s even in Cambodia at the moment, but, y’know, she could have got a craving for one of the fabulous burgers and chips they sold there, and instructed her personal pilot (or better still, Brad) to take her there.
After that, it was back to my bugs in my bedroom to watch the football – thanks for all the email updates on the scores, by the way – and off to sleep. I’d decided to head off the next day to Phnom Penh, as Battambang wasn’t really grabbing me – not much charm to it (although I do know some people who loved it), and I’m learning now not to hang around for the sake of it. I only woke once during the night, and that was when something – god knows what, but it was bigger than, say, a mosquito – was crawling on my hand in the night. I shook it off, and knew I had definitely made the right decision to leave.
Tags: Cambodia, Travel
Suzanne
Hi Suze:
What a fascinating boat journey – imagine me with all that going on!! I’d never live to tell the tale – you’re SO BRAVE! Love reading your blog just wonder when you have the time to fit it all in. Take care Suze – miss you lots – all my love Auntie Rosemaryx
p.s. you missed Gabi’s dance show last night
it was great!! no doubt Claire-Louise, Lou and your mum will comment on this. xx
p.s. so glad that your leg has healed I was worried about it x
Hi Suzanne, now this one has to be the worst that I have read so far. Bugs in the bed, walking over me…..
I suppose I could take the wierd food etc. but not the bugs. YUK.
However, this does add to your adventure….
Love, Lin