Day 12 - Like a Batt out of Bang

13:30
I sleep well, waking naturally a little before 09:00. Nothing planned until Kim picks us up for our afternoon tuk-tuk tour at 14:00, so I have a lazy morning reading, mooching, writing. The sky is brooding and threatening rain.

A little before 12:00, I head out in search of sustenance. Felix is chilling by the pool. I wander fairly aimlessly. I’ve a few places in mind to try over the river in the town centre. It’s raining, and the air feels heavy. It’s Sunday, and quite a few places are closed. Some are open later, but it looks like daytime Sunday is downtime/family time. I end up back at Jaan Bai, where we ate last night. I want to try a Nom Bang, a baguette sandwich that shares quite a bit of heritage with the Vietnamese Banh Mi that I love so much. It’s incredible. Shredded BBQ pork with pickled, shredded papaya and carrot, some cucumber batons, and a slightly spicy sauce that I think is along the lines of a Sriracha and Kewpie combo.

I’m starting to form my opinion of Cambodia in general, and Cambodian people specifically. What’s been described to me as the more basic pace of life here, I’ve interpreted as simpler. I love it. The town of Battambang itself feels like the speed setting has been turned down several notches. There’s a natural lethargy, which I mean as an entirely positive thing. Everywhere I look, there are people gradually going about their business - pacing themselves. Even the traffic moves slower than in Thailand. I find it incredibly easy to spend time here.

Everyone we’ve come across so far (admittedly, only around 24 hours) has been lovely. Super friendly, super helpful, super smiley. There's a welcoming openness, and a sense of joy in the eyes. It feels like an incredibly happy place.

21:00
We’ve had a great afternoon. Our guide, Kim, picks us up in his tuk-tuk at 14:00, and we head off at pace. We stop at a huge statue, denoting the man after whom Battambang was named. His story is long and distinguished, as is his magic black stick (stop tittering at the back). The long and the short of it is that he used his magic black stick to stir some rice he was cooking for Cambodian soldiers. The magic black stick turned the rice black. Our hero ate it all, also turned black, and was turned into a superhero. As origin stories go, it’s pretty damn cool.

From here, we head into the countryside to the bamboo train. Neither of us has a clue what to expect. It transpires we’re to be transported on a thin, bamboo platform, which rests on some metal train wheels. It’s not connected in any other way. A two stroke engine is then strapped to the back of the bamboo platform, and a belt-driven motor attached to the rear train wheels. If this sounds like something pre-industrial, you’d be correct. Felix and I sit at the front while our ‘pilot’ mans the engine. We think she’s around 13/14 years old. Setting off, we accelerate fairly quickly to around 25mph. It feels a LOT faster, as we’re very low to the ground, and we can feel every bump and shake intimately. At one point, we have to stop to let another bamboo train pass us. None of this detracts from the serenity of the rural Cambodian countryside. We pass by rice paddies, cattle grazing fields, arable farmers working the soil. There’s really nothing of note to see as far as the horizon.

Around 5 miles up the track, we stop again, this time next to some little stores selling cold drinks, nick-nacks and the like. The shops are manned by some very cute and very persistent kids - maybe ranging in age from 4-8. We must wait here until the ‘big train’ passes, which is a passenger train that runs from Bangkok through to Phnom Penh. We’re told this will be maybe 10 minutes, but it proves to be more like 30. We pass the time playing with the kids, who are great fun. They give up trying to sell us stuff after 10 fruitless minutes, and are content instead just to hang out. When the big train arrives, it is both big and small. Standing 3m from a train track whenever any train goes past is a bit of a thing. That said, this is actually a 2 carriage commuter style train, so is gone in the blink of an eye.

Kim then takes us on a meander through the countryside surrounding Battambang - we pop into a mushroom farm, and find some wild Makrut lime, we cross a fairly rickety suspension bridge, we visit a farm that makes rice wine, we stop at a roadside BBQ stall where we are offered rat.

Our last port of call is Phnom Sampov. I’ve been looking forward to this. It’s a series of caves in which live something approaching 16 million bats. At dusk, these nocturnal creatures leave the cave in search of food. They leave - all at once. There’s a mass exodus that lasts for upwards of an hour. Kim takes us to a farm that is devoid of other tourists. He reckons it’ll be about 15 minutes until the show begins. He who spends the intermittent time sharing stories of his youth, and of Cambodian/Khmer history. He was born in a refugee camp in 1982, and lived there until he was 12. His parents would both have been considered intellectuals, and thus subject to the Khmer Rouge killing fields. They ran away as fast as they possibly could. He tells us of family members who were not so fortunate. Even today, he says there are elements of the Khmer Rouge still at work in Cambodia. It’s a heartbreaking tale.

He breaks off from a lesson on the impact of Cambodia’s support of Vietnam during the Vietnam war as he can hear the bats starting to move. What follows is staggering. It starts as a trickle - 10 bats here, another 20 bats there. The numbers build and build until there is a constant torrent. What’s beguiling is that viewed as a whole, there’s a uniformity to the crowd. View any single bat though, there’s an individuality, there’s chaos. I take some photos, some videos, but most of all - I watch. This is a natural wonder, and I find it more impressive, more engaging than any man made edifice. At one point, I close my eyes, and tell myself I can hear, or maybe even that I can *feel* a sort of low, humming vibration from the sheer volume of bats flapping their wings. Felix and I are both speechless. Just a brilliant, brilliant experience.

Kim drops us at Pomme in the centre of the old town centre. He’s been a brilliant companion for the afternoon. We’re both properly hungry. Felix has a Lok Lak - a hybrid curry/stir-fry of beef. Super tasty. I have another Amok, which is similar to the one I had last night, but has some notable differences. They’ve certainly used a different fish, and they’ve used some very young lemongrass as a vegetable. Lovely stuff.

We head back to our hotel. The weather’s largely behaved itself today. It’s spitting with rain, but barely umbrella worthy. We make plans to meet in the morning, ahead of our trip up to Siem Reap. Onwards!Okumaya devam et