Battambang (day 5)

Our first full day in Battambang, my friend from the States and I rented a motorbike, my Songyuan friend and our new friend from Busan got a tuk tuk, and we paid the driver to be our tour guide for all that the city had to offer. This turned out to be an all around awesome plan.

Our driver had amazing English, was really friendly and really knowledgeable. It was crazy that he was able to remain so positive while telling us about some of the atrocities the Khmer Rouge had committed against the general population of Cambodia while we were at the temples. They basically killed everyone with an education, or that looked like they might have an education (i.e. everyone that wore glasses), in order to create a society that would just work and not ask questions. His family members were killed by these people and he was still such a happy guy telling us about all of it.

The first place he took us was to grab some bamboo sticky rice (this had another name that I completely forgot, also, this was where he started talking about the Khmer Rouge, so I DO have a logical thought sequence here). To make this, rice, milk and beans are stuffed into a hollowed out section of bamboo, wrapped in banana leaves and then placed over the fire. To eat it, you peel the bamboo away and break of chunks of the mixture; it kind of all sticks together and isn't messy at all. It was really good.

This was right across the street from our first temple of the day.

So, what I said above about the Khmer Rouge? Look at some of the labels on the map at this temple...

Looks like monks live here...

These kids were having following us around practicing English a bit; they were adorable.

After that, he took us to what he called the fish market.

drying fish

catfish heads

fish paste

making more fishy products

Next, we went to watch a woman make rice paper. That was really cool to watch, she's got it down to such a science. The rice paper is so delicate, but she never rips it and it always comes out perfectly.

step 1

step 2

step 3

On our way to the next stop (lunch) the tuk tuk got a flat tire, so they had to melt it to close the hole.

This guy painted the whole temple. He'd been at it for at least two months.

Khmer Rouge killing pit at the temple. They would keep prisoners captive in the temple itself and then push them down this hole into a cave to kill them.

Temple on top of a mountain = gorgeous

After this temple, the tuk tuk took my Songyuan and Busan friends back to the hostel and my friend from the States and I took the motorbike on our own adventure. We checked out some more of the countryside, basically just driving down random roads that were clearly not heavily traveled, it was an amazing afternoon.

No, the elephant isn't real. This was at a temple we stopped at.

We stopped to walk through some rice paddies and these kids we had driven by came chasing us. They ran along the borders of the paddies to get to us and they were having a grand old time. When they reached us, I turned around and started chasing them so we had a funny game going.

 

We went to some other rice paddies and found this little shelter and decided to watch the sunset.

Getting there I misjudged the stability of some mud and was completely surprised when I sank in up to my knees!

That night, the four of us tried to have a night on the town. Everything in Battambang closes so early though, it seemed that our only option was ktv. We found a ktv near to our hotel and were at the door when my friend from the States (the only male in the group) turned around and was like, "We're not going in there..." A Cambodian guy sitting across the street saw the whole thing and started laughing hysterically. Apparently the ktv was a whore house and us girls were just completely oblivious. Our next best option (and the only thing open) was the convenience store across the street. A bunch of Cambodians had grabbed beers and were sitting outside drinking and watching a movie on a projector, so we followed suit.

Yes, this is a pull tab bottle.