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.

Battambang (day 4)

The next day, my Songyuan friend, my friend from America and I got up early and caught a bus to Battambang, Cambodia. It cost six USD and took about three or four hours. A shuttle picked us up from our hostels to take us to the bus and we met a really cool American girl that had been teaching English in Busan, South Korea and doing some post contract traveling. She hung out with us at all the bus stops and such and ended up traveling with us for a few days.

We got to Battambang mid afternoon, so we decided to do something relatively quick and easy. Also, as soon as we got there, I wasn't feeling too hot, so crazy things weren't on my agenda. We ended up taking a tuk tuk to ride the bamboo railroad. We weren't quite sure what to expect from the railroad, Cambodians had described it to as something that was made of bamboo and could rev like a motorbike but ride along train tracks.

Once we got there, it made sense. There used to basically be only one set of train tracks in Cambodia, so if you were going one way on the tracks and suddenly encountered someone going to opposite direction, basically about to hit you head on, you were SOL. And so came the birth of the bamboo railroad. These bamboo platforms with small motors serve as the railroad "cars"; they're really easy to dismantle and remove (think, two minutes), should an obstacle (or another "car") appear ahead on the tracks.

As a tourist, the bamboo railroad takes you on a really shaky 30 to 45 minute ride down the tracks to a small village where they make bricks and try to sell you stuff. Then it brings you back; viola, end of trip.

brick making area

All the jostling proved to be my downfall for the afternoon; I got off, walked about 20 feet and proceeded to puke my guts out. With like 20 Cambodians as an audience. I was feeling moderately better afterwards, so we went back to the hostel and then wandered around town. We checked out the river and watched some of the evening exercise classes.

Sliiiiight European influence.

From first impressions, we really liked Battambang. It didn't rely on tourism to survive like Siem Reap. It had its own life and culture, and the locals were fine with tourists coming in, but they only paid so much attention to us (which was nice).

That evening, I stayed in, because I was basically dying, and enjoyed the wonders of English speaking television (Grey's Anatomy and chick flicks only for some reason). I was quite happy to be comfortable in a pretty nice hotel for my bout of food poisoning. If I was destined to get it at some point, that was the best possible time. As we discovered the next night, the city shuts down quite early, so I really didn't miss much.

Cambodia (first impressions)

When I first flew into Cambodia, I changed my RMB at the airport and they gave me riel. This ended up being kind of stupid, because they also use USD in Cambodia. 4,000 riel = 1 USD and you're constantly doing the math, you can pay in a combination of both, and you'll often get change in a combination of both. I actually had a harder time using my riel than using the USD I accumulated.

Cambodia is a really poor country, that might have been the one thing I heard from my students when they heard I was going. But for being so poor, it was definitely more expensive than I expected. You can find a decent hostel for maybe 8, 9, 10 USD, which isn't much, but all things considered it was surprising. Food and such was actually more expensive there than in Songyuan.

Along with USD, I also found a lot more foreigners and a lot more English spoken amongst the locals than I was expecting. I can count on maybe half of one hand, the number of my friends in the States that I have ever heard mention going to Cambodia, or just mention Cambodia at all. We saw so many young, say college aged people, on our trip, and many retired couples as well. One would assume this is why there is so much spoken English. That part was a bit overwhelming for me at first. I'm used to not understanding and tuning out 99.5% of the things around me. Being able to eavesdrop on five conversations simultaneously is quite a bit to take in in contrast to that.

Along with all the foreigners, there is a lot of foreign food. I can't count how many days while I was traveling that I had banana pancakes. Real, western, banana pancakes. It was great. The French had a huge influence in Cambodia, and it was so nice to have that influence in the food as well.

One of the most interesting things for me though, was to see how Cambodia is both ahead of and behind China. For example, China is more developed and has a lot more buildings, but the buildings aren't built to last. Cambodia's are much fewer, but the construction is more solid and enduring, and you can find more older architecture.

Last but not least, I wouldn't be me if I didn't talk about the bathrooms. Siem Reap has primarily western style toilets, though we found more squatters as we moved on. What they don't have so much is toilets with flushers. Almost all of them (western and squatters alike) are manual flush toilets. There would be a big bin of water with a scooper next to the toilet, and when you were done you had to scoop a bunch of water into the toilet to force your business down. And almost all the bathrooms have butt guns (yes, I am SURE this is the technical term). They're like the poor man's version of a bidet. Mounted on the wall next to the toilets, there is a hose with a sprayer on the end that looks just like the sprayer and hose combo you would find at an American kitchen sink.

Siem Reap (day 3)

Our last day in Siem Reap, my Songyuan friend and I went to check out Preah Prohn Rath Monastery, which was very near to our hostel and the main area of town. The place looked really, really new; everything was brightly colored and there was just so much stuff. In actuality, it is the oldest monastery in Siem Reap (this is where China and Cambodia are sometimes alike with their temples, monestaries, pagodas, etc. restoration). As wrong as it is to say, it almost looked like the Buddhist cemetery version of Disneyland.

This is actually not a garbage pile, it's a building pile.

All of these little tower/statue things have deceased monks' ashes in them.

The one old looking building was blocked off.

After that, we decided to try to check out a small village that is supposedly floating. Lonely Planet said it was about a 30 minute tuk tuk ride to catch a boat that would cost us 13USD and then take us there. We got ourselves a tuk tuk and set off. The tuk tuk headed out of the city and into some of the most gorgeous country scenery I have seen in a really long time. That ride was me falling in love with Cambodia.

When I first arrived, my friend had said that Cambodia was really colorful and the sky was really big. I kind of brushed that off, like, "Ok, what does that even mean..." Once we got out of the city though, I completely understood. The colors ARE amazing, especially in contrast with the dull, dirty, grey everything of Songyuan. The sky looks so vast and is actually blue and visible, no pollution, and no high rises or mountains to infringe on it.

Our tuk tuk ended up driving us maybe an hour out into the country. About 45 minutes into the the ride, my friend looked at me and asked if I thought we were safe. Our driver HAD seemed a bit off, he had these weird random giggles and invited us to his home, which was near where we were trying to go, but the idea of our safety being at risk was something that hadn't even occurred to me. She did have a point though, two American female tourists in the middle of nowhere Cambodia with a strange tuk tuk driver, no one that knows where they went, no way to contact anyone for help and no way to communicate with locals. Eek.

Luckily, shortly after, we arrived at the place to buy the boat tickets... where they proceeded to try to charge us almost double what Lonely Planet had said, for only three hours. We knew that was going to be a total ripoff all things considered, and we were really happy with just the drive itself, so we decided not to go after all. We turned around and then the tuk tuk driver did end up taking us to his home (we had actually driven directly past it on the way there), but it wasn't creepy, just kind of awkward. There were about four or five kids running around, two women and one or two other men (no one that spoke any English) and then a ton of animals.

The animals are common thing in Cambodia. Whereas China has pretty much no wildlife and few kept/domestic animals, in Cambodia, we saw an abundance of cats, dogs, pigs, cows, water buffalo, chickens, ducks and geese both chained or penned up and wandering around freely. The whole country was like a free range farm, my friend and I loved it.

Duck farm!

That night, we met my friend from the States again and did something I have been wanting to do foreeeeeever... Thai fish pedicures! The little fish eat all the dead skin off your feet, or legs, or hands, or whatever. It's awesome. It feels super weird at first; you can feel little scrapes that kind of tickle, but once you get used to it, it's great. And you get a free beer!

Then we had some interesting food for dinner and drinks at a great loungey bar. The three of us laid on a bed-like platform, complete with pillows and such, hanging from the ceiling, like a swing. The rest of the seats were hammocks and the like. Absolutely perfect for holiday.

Raw meats that we barbequed for dinner include (from the left) squid, crocodile, beef, snake and chicken (in the middle).