ONE DAY IN BATTAMBANG

Day 23, April 13^th

Today is going to be a quick day.  We have one day in Battambang and quite a few things to get to.

Mom and dad are down stairs early.  Our tuk-tuk driver, Dara, is right on time at 9am.  I am late, as usual.  As I walk through the lobby, mom stops me and introduces me to a French lady who used to be a tour guide in Cambodia.  She gives me the lowdown on a beach town in Cambodia called Kep.  She says it is better than Sihanoukville, the beach town we plan to go to.  I have to buy our bus tickets for tomorrow morning out of Battambang right now.  Crap!  I have no idea which city to go to and we likely won’t have time to go to the other if we don’t like the one we go to.  I have to buy the bus tickets now.  Plan C.  Phnom Penh.  We’ll go there first and then the beach after that.  That way I have more time to research the two beach cities.  I purchase tickets and we are off on our day.

Patton commends me on my rational decision about the bus tickets.  Great!  Now I REALLY feel like I made a mistake.  No going back now.

Assembly step 1.

 Our first stop is a Patton discovery.  Actually, Battambang and everything in it is a Patton discovery.  The first stop is the bamboo train.  It’s a bamboo platform set on wheels that races up and down uneven, single-track, French-era rails powered by a loud lawnmower engine.  When two ‘trains’ come head to head, the one with less cargo is disassembled and the other is allowed to pass through.  These are still used to transport people and goods to and from the market.

Assembly step 2.

When we get there, it must be tourist day.  No market.  The track is set up and organized for tourists.  Dara grabs the seats from his tuk-tuk and puts them on the bamboo flat.  Our VIP ‘train’ is ready.  We mount up, the engine is cranked into action.  It’s slow moving at first.  But, as the wind picks up and the ground starts flying by, the ‘train’ feels pretty fast.  Just incase you are on the verge of getting comfortable, the uneven and occasionally unconnected tracks sends an unsettling jolt through the flat to remind you how primitive this is.

We go about 15 minutes and then stop at a ‘station’.  It’s a place to buy food and souvenirs.   It is amazing, this country never misses an opportunity to sell you a can of Pringles and a 7up.  We spend a few minutes at the ‘station’.  Mom makes friends with the ‘station chief’.  This little girl makes me a ring out of banana leaf.  I think I am married now, or at least intended.  A few pictures and we ride the rails back.

The lovely couple.

After the bamboo train, we do a few more stops at a bridge and a winery.  Suffice it to say, there is a reason Cambodia isn’t known for its fermented grapes.  Moving on.  Right after the winery, we pass by a Cambodian wedding.  The Cambodian weddings are very loud, colorful affairs.  Karaoke.  What else needs to be said.  The bride and groom are outside taking pictures and they wave to us.  Several more people wave to us and invite us in for a drink.  I hope they aren’t serving wine.  We keep moving.

We arrive at a temple and there appears to be a huge ceremony going on.  I know we are approaching the Khmer New Year, but this looks religious.  Then again, how can I tell the difference in the ceremonies?  The temple is on the hilltop, the highest temple in Battambang and there are many steps to get to the top.  About 300 I think.

Initially there is hesitation about allowing us to climb to the temple.  I am getting the vibe that the ceremony is preventing us from being able to climb, which is fine.  Then someone brings up the fact that there is a back way, through the woods to the back of the temple.  We can go up and down that way.  More discussion.  There is a big group congregated now to discuss this.  We have no clue what they are saying.  Finally, the decision is made.  We can go up the steps to the temple, but walk down the back way through the woods.  That’s cool, but doesn’t make sense to me.  I guess the ceremony dictates no one comes down the steps?

The climb.

Mini break.

We start off for the steps and are immediately given ‘guides’.  Three women and a boy.  That seems excessive.  They will show us up the steps and lead us down the back way.  We pass by the ceremony and start up the steps.

You gotta be joking!  I cannot believe this!  Now I know why they were so hesitant about letting us climb the steps and it had nothing to do with the ceremony.  And these guides aren’t guides.  They are ‘assistants’.  As in assisting old people up the steps.  They looked at mom and dad and figured they couldn’t physically make it up the steps to the temple and the back way was the less strenuous, easy way up and down.  I guess they thought they could minimize the risk by having ‘professional assistants’ aiding the geriatrics in their ascent.  This is really pathetic.

To dad’s credit, he doesn’t need the help.  He is shocked there is a five-year-old boy on one arm and a young lady on the other ‘helping' him.  Dad’s just playing along.  Mom, she has a stool and pale and is milking this thing.  The two ladies helping her are massaging her while we climb up the steps.  She moans at how good it feels and how much it helps her.  We stop every 20 steps or so so they can massage her thighs and calves.  I am dumbfounded.  I can’t even get someone to fan me with a banana leaf.  Ridiculous!

Big break.

One major break and about 5 mini-breaks later we are at the top at the temple.  Mom barely even walks around.  She sits on a bench while her helpers massage her, fan her and tell her how good she did.  “Kevin, look around and tell me if I need to come see anything.”  Déjà vu.

I do a little walk around the temple.  It’s pretty nice.  Worth the walk up.  Time to walk down.

Again, mom and dad are flanked by their helpers.  Holding their arms.  Fanning them.  Pointing out treacherous pebbles in the path.  Holding back dangerous twigs that overhang the trail.  I can’t believe I am paying witness to this.

Somehow, mom and dad miraculously survive the descent without having a heart attack or passing out from exhaustion.  Good-byes and tips to our heroes and we are back on the road to the next place.

Entrance to the Killing Cave.

The Killing Cave is one of the lesser-known places from the darkest period in Cambodia’s history.  Like the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, the Killing Cave is where the members of the Khmer Rouge would take people who were believed to be a threat to Pol Pot to be killed.  There is an area there where the adults were killed and an area where the babies were killed.  They were never shot.  The Khmer Rouge didn’t want to waste the ammunition.  An estimated 800 – 900 people were killed at the Killing Cave by knife, rock or being swung like a baseball bat in to the cave wall.  The number is small compared to the tens of thousands of people killed at the Killing Fields, but no less horrific when you stand in the cave and see the skulls, bones and clothes.

A shrine of skulls.

Dara brought us to a restaurant he knew about at the bottom of the mountain with the Killing Cave.  After a quick break, three guys from the restaurant take us up to the top on motorbikes.  The head guy explained the story of the Killing Cave as best he could in English.  You can see in the way he talks that it isn’t some event that happened lifetimes ago.  It is a very recent part of Cambodian history.  Within his lifetime.  It is something the country is still dealing with.

We walk around to a few more temples and structures on the top of the mountain and then we are done.  Done for the day.  Time to go back to the hotel.

Our trusted guide, Dara, assisting mom.

At the hotel, we thank Dara.  I give him the money for the day with a tip.  He really was an amazing kid.  He sees that I have given him more than we had agreed upon.  His face lights up, he brings his hands together, does a small bow and says, “Thank you for giving me a job today.”  Wow.  That is such a unique, telling and humbling phrase to hear.  During the day, he constantly talked about school, learning, working, wanting to do so much.  He has the right attitude.  Actually, it seems as though everyone in Battambang has the right attitude.  It lacks the seediness and greed that permeates so much of Siem Reap.  I hope it stays that way.

We head out into the small city and find a nice quiet dinner.  I have been craving a cheeseburger.  This certainly isn’t Hut’s Hamburgers, but it will have to hold me over for the next few weeks.  We turn in early.  Tomorrow morning we head to the ‘rational’ destination.

Unassistedly yours,

The Dagwood

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