No Fixed Abode: Bat exodus

Mon 29 Feb 2016 - Rural Cambodia and the Bat Cave

Our last full day in Battamabang today so after breakfast we rented a tuk tuk and asked the young driver, Hang, to take us into the countryside ‘where the tourists don’t go’. After convincing him that we’d already made rice paper and seen the fish paste factory we set off for the paddy fields that surround Battambang.

On the way out of the city we saw a beautiful pagoda and asked our driver to stop. In his disjointed English he explained that it was not a pagoda, apparently they are in monasteries, but a public place of worship built recently and still being extended. It was unlike any of the monasteries we’d seen and provided a place for anyone in the community to share any idea for the welfare of the community. Very beautifully decorated and surrounded by pretty gardens filled with lots of flowering plants. Hang explained that many of its features (buddha statues, seats, trees etc) had been donated by wealthy individuals. All in all a lovely building with a good feel to it.

Still incredulous that we just wanted to go into the countryside Hang took us down a looong dusty track stopping periodically to highlight some feature or answer one of the many questions we had for him. The paddy fields were bone dry and very brown from a failure of the second harvest, normally in January, and it appears that last year’s rains were unusually poor and it hadn’t rained since last August. The fires, which we’d assumed were strategically lit for some form of land nutrition, were wild fires caused by the sun or careless smokers. With no water to extinguish them and, in some cases, the remote owner not even knowing his field was on fire they just had to burn themselves out.

Just out of town we saw a large field that had been filled in (the paddy fields are usually lower than the road and enclosed by an earth bank so they can be flooded) and subdivided into building plots for sale. Plus ca choice, plus c'est la meme chose.

At the end of the long dusty road we turned into a farmyard and Hang proudly introduced us to his uncle and family. We were admiring the rather nice new house he’d built on his land but it seems they preferred to spend the day in the, rather grotty looking, wooden shack that had been the original house. With lots of smiles and our best ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in our limited Khmer (the Cambodian language) we left, drove a little further down the track to meet another uncle.

This family had a large new stilt house and were all sitting underneath out of the sun. Hang showed us around the back to see an enormous bull his uncle owns. We then saw a strange barn with many bamboo slatted shelves and asked what it was for. Hang introduced us to his young cousin who claimed to speak a little English but was actually very proficient once he got started. Evidently he is the brains behind mushroom growing. He explained how they cover the shelves with straw, seal the barn with the rolled up plastic sheeting fitted to the walls and fill it full of steam that is created from a homemade water boiling contraption made from a couple of oil drums over a fire pit. Once the straw is steamed they spread the spores, wait a few days, apply water, wait some more then harvest 10 days later. Apparently he’d learned most of the process from YouTube and went on to show us another two similar barns with plans for some more. He was keen to go into ‘industrialised agriculture’. Another inspirational young Cambodian.

On our way back we learned that Hang had married the previous month, he bought his tuk tuk around the same time but also works in the hotel where we are staying, while his wife works in one of the casinos in the Thai border town. They are saving hard to by their own piece of land so they can live in the ‘fields’ (countryside) get a pond (for fish to eat) and start a family. You can’t help but be moved by the younger Cambodians’ optimism and hard work.

Back at the hotel for the midday sun we chilled out in the shade then boarded another tuk tuk for our journey to the bat cave. No, not the one built by Bruce Wane but a cave where thousands of bats roost during the day and all come out at dusk, returning at dawn.

The cave is in the side of a limestone hill, affectionately referred to as a mountain by the locals, and is a 30 min ride from Battambang. We enjoyed the slow tuk tuk ride through more rice fields, including one containing tall, green rice - clearly irrigated somehow, and stopped once to visit a stall selling barbequed bats. On reaching the ‘mountain’ we noticed many other tuk tuks, motorbikes and taxis and realised this was a tourist ‘must do’. Never mind. With time on our hands we walked up with our driver to the top of the hill to a cave into which the Khmer Rouge had killed thousands of people and tossed their bodies. The locals have built a sort of eerie memorial with a bizarre sculpture scene of the many ways the local people were tortured and killed on the way up to it. It really was a tragic time for them. At the bottom of the cave was another bone filled monument with a serene reclining Buddha overlooking them.

Further round the ‘mountain’ was a Buddhist temple that pre dates the Khmer Rouge and provides great views over the surrounding fields - or would have had it not been for the haze/smoke cocktail in the air. We must return in the rainy season to get a sense of the greenness that Cambodia is famous for.

Down at the base of the ‘mountain’ we found a good bat viewing spot and awaited dusk with the aroma of bat guano. We had read that the bats often pee on the way out of the cave so we’d come equipped with our hats but when they eventually started their migration they took a sharp turn at the cave exit and missed us completely - phew. What an amazing sight. Thousands and thousands of bats flying in a long thin cloud from cave exit to the horizon as they all left to hunt insects at a lake some miles away. It took around 30 mins for all the bats to leave - it must be some cave - after which we drove slowly back to the hotel just in time to witness the last minutes of a Taekwondo lesson for young kids in the riverbank park.