24-11-08 Battambang

We hired mopeds for the full day with each a private driver to drive us around the beautiful country side with the warm and friendly inhabitants of the elegant riverside town Battambang. The province Battambang was once Cambodia's largest and richest province; it was on the front lines of the civil war of the 1980s and 1990s. Difficult to imagine such observing the welcoming (we have answered hundreds of 'hello's' by the kids) people met in the villages.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that there is so much to see off the main roads. And off the main roads, means mainly dirt roads, so a lot of Cambodian snow = dust. Every country gets its part of snow; we have learned that there was some white snow these days in The Netherlands!
We have seen many - and visited some of them - wats (= temples) - incl. some killing caves (an ironic variety of the Killing Fields by the Khmer Rouge) -, visited home factories of sticky rice, fish sauce (terribly bad smelling and seeing how it is produced, a reason to never eat it ...), (rice) noodles and rice paper for spring rolls.
The main parts of the temples are destroyed by the Khmer Rouge; efforts are done to reconstruct them, but unfortunately the money is lacking.

We also used the bamboo train, a typical Cambodian curiosity and one of world's all-time classic rail journey. Each bamboo train - also known in Cambodian as a norry (nori) - consists of a 3-mtr long frame, covered lengthwise with slats of ultra-light bamboo. Pile on 10 or 15 people or up to 3 tonnes of rice, crank it up and you can cruise along at about 15 km/hour. The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the most ineluctable problem faced on any single-track line: what to do when 2 trains going opposite directions meet? In the case of bamboo trains, the answer is simple: one car is quickly disassembled and set on the ground beside the tracks, so the other one can pass.
All together a very relaxing day, the hardest part was to wash off all the dust ...
The moped drivers were very careful drivers and no single moment we were afraid; even though we were not wearing - though existing in Cambodia - helmets. Sounds pretty dangerous, but we were not driving fast and though traffic looks crazy; there is a certain logic in it, not always understand by us, used to traffic lights - the latter hardly exist in Cambodia - and clear signs.

PS:
Another detail about the corruption in Cambodia: this country is ranking on the 6th place of most corrupted countries (no. 1 is Sierra Leone). How does it come that the population accepts such? Different answers: 1) at election time, the mainly illiterate farmers (representing 80% of the voters) are bribed with presents and money in order to vote for the government party. 2) People are threatened and still afraid. 3) The leaders of the opposition are put temporary in prison ....
Though our expenses for food and drinks are relatively low (often we are paying for a fried noodles with vegetables with coke just USD 3), we are paying much more than for instance in the neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, who economically are doing much better. The reason for such is related to corruption as well: part of the selling price is paid to the authorities as a kind of tax. We in Europe do pay taxes as well, but these are - supposed to be - used for public expenses as medical care, education, infrastructure, roads, etc. In Cambodia these 'taxes' disappear directly into the pockets of the authorities...

PS:
the 'harvest' of the fire hydrants and sewage covers is very poor so far: only 3 fire hydrants in Phnom Penh, somewhere on the road and the 3rd one in Battambang ... Now interesting sewage covers so far, mainly because in the majority of the place we visited there is no public sewage infrastructure ........