Rough roads, rough realities…
We made a stopover in Battambang, a small town full of French architecture and bakeries that is actually the second largest city in Cambodia. To get there, we had a five hour bus ride that included several hours backtracking on that same crater-covered road that we’d taken from the border. This road, we quickly found out, is far more painful in a bus!
The day was dry, so instead of heart-pounding slides and near-misses in the mud (Mom, Dad, I may have skipped that small detail before), it was a sandpit of a road with the dust hanging heavy in the air and seeping into every miniscule crack on the rickety old bus. The potholes are atrocious and you felt everything. I suddenly understood why every Cambodian wears a krama (checked scarf wrapped around your mouth/nose) and why the bus driver handed out plastic bags before the trip (someone is bound to get sick). Luckily, no Asian can go more than two hours without a snack and there were plentiful rest stops.
When our bus pulled into Battambang, I made the mistake of having the curtain open, which meant that we, the only two white faces on the bus, were immediately zeroed in on and had a mob of motobike drivers waving guesthouse flyers at us before we could ever get off the thing. We’ve mastered the art of pretending they aren’t there until we’ve got our bags and are ready to negotiate, and we eventually boarded the backs of two motobikes. The drivers said they’d take us free of charge to the Chaaya Hotel and if we didn’t like it, we were free to go elsewhere. The place was good, the room clean and cheap, so we agreed. The deal of course, is that then the driver tries to get you to hire him for whatever sights you want to see. We were going to need a driver to go to the mountain and he offered a full day for $8 apiece – we liked him, his price was right and we gave him a job.
The next morning Odom and his friend picked us up at 8 and we headed out of town on the backs of two motobikes. The road of course was dirt and covered in potholes/trenches from being torn up during the wet season, so it was quite a ride! I normally hesitate with taking guides, because I like to pace myself, but it was so nice to have someone to point out things I never would have noticed or thought to ask about – he was incredibly informative and a really genuine guy (also an expert pothole-dodger).
He gave us his story once we’d gotten to the mountain. He’s 39 and thus was 10 years old at the height of the Khmer Rouge years. His father was killed by them and he was separated from his mother and forced to work, starving, in the rice paddies where he saw his share of death. He eventually was one of the lucky ones who escaped to the Thai border in 1979 and lived in a refugee camp for 13 years.
He spent 8 of those years working as a medic, where he learned to speak Thai, English and French. Despite speaking four languages and having medical experience, he is unable to find real work in Cambodia and has to remain a motodriver in order to pay to send his three kids to school. He says he’d leave if he could, as the government is just far too corrupt and he told me how he thinks Thais are very lucky – their government may be corrupt as well, but at least they are able to speak out against it. Needless to say, he was a great guide to have, he knew his stuff.
On the hike up the mountain, we stopped in two caves that were used by the Khmer Rouge during the genocide. They would line people around a hole in the top of the cave and bludgeon people to death (to save expensive bullets), leaving the bodies down below. Piles of bones are still there, the skulls all with massive cracks – it was incredibly chilling to see.
After climbing to the top of the mountain and back down, we had a long, scenic ride on a narrow dirt track through the countryside, which I am still so fascinated with. Odom explained a lot about rice farming and village life and all sorts of other things – this is truly what it means to barely scrape by.
We finished at the ‘bamboo train,” a wooden platform, basically a bed, set on wheels and balanced on a warped, twisted little train track. These are used to transport goods and were historically propelled by bamboo sticks, used as boat oars. Today they have lawn mower engines attached, and the ride is faster if not much more painful! The tracks aren’t straight by any means, and you feel EVERY kink in the path!
If you come head to head with another platform (which we did), whoever has the lightest load has to unload their cart, remove it from the tracks and let the other pass. Luckily we had two motobikes, but I felt bad watching a huge group of village people unloading their sacks of rice and children to make room for us. That’s how it works though, it was a great ride! We eventually got off and the guys drove us the remaining 15 minutes back into town.
We had a quiet evening after that, as Battambang more or less shuts down after dark, but I was so glad that we’d stopped for a day. I learned more from Odom than from all of the books I’ve read, and I know that the meager supply of tourists leaves him hurting – hopefully we helped him as much as he helped us!
Today we bussed it to Phnom Penh, where I sort of feel like I’m in Bangkok (minus the great food), but sort of don’t. Tomorrow we’re riding bikes to the Killing Fields and the S-21 museum, so it’ll be a few more days of sobering, intense history lessons. Stay tuned…
Tags: Battambang, Cambodia, culture, Khmer Rouge, transportation, Travel
allisonrae
October 9th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[…] Original post by allisonrae […]
October 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thanks Allison, for a great read. I think now…. I might stop feeling sorry for myself.
Continue to be safe and continue with these descriptive writings; again, I’m so proud of what you are doing; you show me that anything is possible.
See you on March 5th (not that I’m excited about that or anything 🙂
love you!
October 10th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Allison,
This is a great read and the pictures are amazing! Thanks for sharing!
Love ya