With the locals.

Sun 28 Feb 2016 - Cycle tour of Battambang

This morning the wedding on the opposite embankment started at 05.10am so we didn’t require our alarm. We had an early breakfast with music, singing and prayers echoing over the loudspeakers the town. A tuk tuk driver met us at 07.30am taking us to Butterfly Tours office where we had walked to a couple of days ago. We met our guide for the day, Chenda, a 3rd year student at the Uni here and living in town leaving his family running a farm in the rural countryside. He is one of the founders of Butterfly Tours, all young locals working for themselves and not a foreign owned company employing locals. Fantastic to meet these young and dynamic adults. Chenda took us through the plan for the day and then kitted out with our bikes and a straw hat we were on our way.

On our way to our first stop we passed through a busy market where people had their wares laid out on the ground on used sacks or in various containers. Still alive fish were flapping their tails and gasping for air. Chenda bought fried bananas and fried potatoes and we ate these whilst watching the commotion as a second breakfast. Off next to just north of the town to Wat Somrong Knong (The well of Shadows), a monument to the Khmer Rouge genocide. A structure with skulls and bones recovered from the mass graves encased in a glass edifice placed on two large tiers, in front of which were a number of concrete reliefs depicting the fall of the area to the KR. They graphically portray the atrocities that took place thereafter and are shocking.

The Buddhist temple here was used as a prison and the surrounding areas killing fields where over 10,000 people, including monks, were put to death in the most horrific manner. You could not help but be moved by this place.

On our way for a short cycle to meet a local family who industriously make bamboo rice cakes, a local delicacy. Sawing short lengths of bamboo canes they stuff them with rice and cook them over a hot charcoal fire until the bamboo outer is scorched burnt. This outer layer is then sliced off with a huge knife and as you peel back the remaining  layer of bamboo inside is tasty sticky rice. A labour intensive process which involves all the family. Chenda prepared one for us to devour, filled with black beans it was a tasty third breakfast.

On to fish paste making where we had been warned the smell could be slightly overwhelming. Under a roughly built structure men and women sat on the floor and with expert precision gutted the fish and prepared fillets for sale. However, the paste is made from the tiny fish caught in the local river and left in salted vats of water for up to a year to ferment. The longer in the vats, the more expensive to buy - just like wine.

Next to another local cottage industry, making dried banana where a woman showed us her skill in slicing wafer thin pieces of banana with a very sharp knife and laying them out on bamboo sheets to dry in the sun with the whole process taking a couple of days. She encouraged us to have a go and of course this provided a good laugh all around and as a reward we were given lots more to taste and some bananas too. Oh dear, fourth breakfast or brunch?

Hopping on our bikes our next stop was to see how an important food staple here, Khmer noodles were made and the local family had prepared some dishes for us to taste. Chenda explained the incredibly manual and labour intensive process to making these fine noodles from rice with boiling, draining, pounding and sieving all done by various family members. Hmm, first lunch shall we call it?

Going on from here we met an elderly gentleman who distilled rice wine and he took great pride in explaining, in English, how he made his own yeast to a secret recipe and after the rice was mixed with the yeast within a few days could be distilled to 40% proof.  We were amazed to discover he learnt his English in the late 70’s, just before the Pol Pot regime, and decades later he is now using it with foreigners. Fantastic!

Time for proper lunch, even though we hadn’t stopped eating on this tour so far, and we headed off a way to meet a family who make rice paper, which is used for making spring rolls. Again we were amazed by the skill of the people and how labour intensive the whole process was in getting the rice to a consistence to a thick batter then skill is required to create a round ‘pancake’ batter which is quickly steamed, removed and hung over a piece of bamboo where the flimsy wet paper is then transferred to a woven bamboo sheet to dry out in the sun. Luckily at have a go time, we were naturals at removing the flimsy paper and laying on the bamboo sheet without making holes or tearing it. It was here our lunch had been prepared and we sat in the shade within their hotbed of industry and ate a local type of stew and a steamed fish. All extremely tasty. We were meant to have a snooze here in some hammocks to rest however, we had interesting discussions with Chenda along with teaching him ‘Lovely jubly’, which meant we were off to our next stop.

Cycling back through the main town we stopped at a local vendor to enjoy cold coconut juice served directly out of the nut. Our first since arriving in SE Asia which was very refreshing. Here Chenda chatted to the two young girls running this family business as we were intrigued to understand why they were wearing so many layers of clothes. Too keep a pale skin which Cambodian boys prefer and colours on clothes look better on pale skin, to the point they put on fake white. We all giggled as we explained  Westerners think clothes look better on dark skin to the point they put on fake tan. How absurd.

Then we were on our way to Wat Kor ancient house built over 100 years ago in a Cambodian style for a local wealthy man. His great granddaughter was on hand to show everyone around, she’s 75 years old, spoke french and although very frail was determined to show all the foreigners this popular tourist venue.  Glenn commented that his Mum’s home was older than this house. Perhaps there’s a money spinning idea there then!?

And lastly, we cycled some way to jump on the well known tourist favourite, the bamboo train. Sold in Lonely Planet as one of the world’s all time unique rail journeys we were highly delighted this was included in our bike tour. Joining it outside the town we knew the train bumps along for 7km along warped, misaligned rails and crossed perilously looking fragile wooden bridges. Each bamboo train consists of a long wooden frame covered lengthwise with slats of bamboo that rest on the wheels of the train with a very noisy petrol engine providing power.

We sat crossed legged on a couple of cushions placed on the bamboo slats and were soon speeding along the track bumping and jolting around. As it is a one way track anyone coming the other way has to stop and lift off the bamboo frame and remove the wheels to the side and replace them when we passed. It was very busy and basically operated by local villagers for tourists with stops half way to buy a few beers and at the end of the leg out was a little market. Great enterprise. On the return leg, after our frame and wheels had been reversed we noticed how golden brown the rice paddy fields were following the harvest.  Many fields clearly recently burnt, which accounts for the acrid and hazy air around the town over the last few days.

Our tour completed, we cycled back to town, dropped our bikes off and thanked Chenda for a great day out with him. He saw us safely across very busy streets in the town flagging to locals to slow down for us, which they did, and he kept a smile on his face all day although we asked so many questions. Their venture deserves the #1 ranking on TripAdvisor and clearly shows to the community they can influence their own lives.

At the market

A country lane

Bones at  Wat Somrong Knong memorial

Chenda demonstrates opening the bamboo rice

And the tasty, sticky contents inside

The hive of activity filleted the today's catch

Vats of fish paste

The lady warming our dried banana for us

Chenda displays a sheet of dried banana

The young girls serving at the noodle stall

Rice wine still

Glenn tried is spreading the rice paper

We wait for our bamboo train to depart

Burnt out rice fields