Battambang and rural Cambodia
We left Phnom Penh and headed to Battambang, a town in the North West of Cambodia. It took us about 6 hours by bus to cover the distance of about 270 Kms. Not that bad actually considering the condition of the roads. Nice to give our feet a break on the ride.
Battambang is a good jumping off point to some scenic rural areas and small villages, which is why we decided to come here. We rented a couple bicycles, got map and headed out to the country side.
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| Selfie as we got on our way |
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| One of the many instances when the kids come out to say hi. |
One thing that was a constant was the amount of children that would run out to you. "Hello..." comes echoing from homes. "how are you?", "what is your name", "have a nice day" and other nice greetings. I'm guessing it's one of the few opportunities to practice their English.
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| The typical home design in the area. I'm guessing it gets very wet here dring the monsoon, as most houses are up on stilts at varying heights. |
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| Cool suspended bridge we came across on our dirt path. |
Our paved road quickly turned to gravel, then dirt then a narrow path, not really a road at all. We actually got a bit lost (believe it or not...) so that's when we decided to turn around. Not before being rewarded with a really cool suspended bridge and a few small villages that we wouldn't have found otherwise. Well worth it!
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| Some crops growing on the banks of the river. |
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| Passing a farmer on the path in one of the small villages we went through. |
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| Hello... Hello... |
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| Part of a home high up on the river bank. This is dry season, but the water gets much higher during the monsoon season. |
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| Rice field. |
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| Fishing village |
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| Villagers sorting and cleaning the days catch. |
Along the path just before we turned around these 2 cute little girls decided to say hello and chat. Dy stopped to ask them for directions (and pick up a few more Khmer words). I had to turn around and shoot a bit of video. It's really funny how animated and amused they are (I think they're laughing at me...not with me!). In the end they pointed us in the right direction. Check it out. It'll make you smile...
Bamboo Train (Norry)
The Khmer Rouge basically shut down the French built train system when they took over. So when they were finally ousted the people were left with miles of basically abandoned railway tracks at their disposal. The ingenuity of the Cambodian people kicked in and they started using the tracks with flats made of bamboo placed on rail wheels. They power these mini "trains" with small engines (picture lawnmower engines). We absolutely had to check this out. We went for a nice ride on one of them. Faster than I expected it to be (as you'll see in the video). Really makes you feel like a kid again!
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| Dy and our Engineer. |
You have to check the video. It was so much fun!
