Battambang to Siem Reap
Trip Start
May 18, 2005
1
12
25
Trip End
Jul 10, 2005
Battambang,
Cambodia
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Battambang is a very laid back provincial city. Many buildings dating from French colonial days, so a pretty place & very lush at this time of year when monsoon starting. One of the most striking things about BB is the quiet and very civilized traffic. There seems to be no real rules, but almost everyone is very accomodating of one another. Seldom see a driver with something to prove. We spend a fair amount of time on the 4th floor veranda of hotel watching the traffic moving along, merging - most people we've seen on one moto is 5, though possibly there was a baby stuck in there to make 6.
Experiencing slight GI action, but so far, nothing of consequence
David at David S's house
. There is a theory about that it makes little difference to eat peeled fruit, etc. vs. just eat whatever. So far, the latter working okay. But nobody gets out of here without some action, so we'll see how cocky I am when I'm sick.I'm like Seinfeld on tour. Monday it was a woman somewhere in the countryside cracking up over my beard, then falling over in hysterics when I took my hat off to let her see my bald head. Yesterday, I stopped on a corner to have some satay and shredded papaya. The lady gave me a tiny plastic stool to sit on and when I sat down, the stool broke & I went sprawling on my back on the sidewalk (can you dig Cambodian sidewalks?) sending everyone but the woman grilling the meat into great gales of laughter - me too - ridiculous.
Yesterday met a young Canadian woman in the White Rose who started out 6 months ago to travel around SE Asia and has never gotten out of Cambodia - caught up in the magic, beauty, mystery, darkness, and all of Cambodia. I understand. If no Vietnam visa time restriction, would likely stay here longer. There is a two story French colonial villa all mouldering and wonderful looking across the river from the hotel. I walked across the bridge to look at it up close - Oh Yeah. Hey Leslie, are you ready?
Mixed fruit salad today: durian, dragonfruit, longan, jackfruit, pineapple, rambutan, banana (definitely not Dole!), papaya, and apple
David's house
. Cost 2500 Riel - about $.65 USD.Took another moto tour today - mostly just riding around countryside. Visited a 200 year old temple. Was desecrated by Khmer Rouge, who used it as jail and execution site. Now shuttered and no longer in use (too many ghosts, we were told). Old crematory nearby. Disturbing.
Then a little further up the road the strangest thing happened. We met an American man living in the countryside on a couple of hectares. He (and his Khmer wife) is living somewhat as a Cambodian farmer except organically and with all sorts of innovations. His house is on very high stilts in the middle of a small deep lake (aprox 50 meters diam except irregular shape). The house is all thatch, with a door, or rather opening shaped like a heart. A very small partially underwater bridge made of single boards and a palm trunk leads to a floating platform. We spent about an hour on the platform talking - so peaceful and cool with gentle breeze rocking us ever so slightly. To get to the house (we did not go), he unmoors the platform and pulls it to the house and climbs up the ladder. He took us through his garden, which was just grand. He is growing every kind of fruit imaginable and, check this out, rice. For vegetables and fruits he uses banana trees to shade the young plants, e.g., pineapple as they are getting started, then transplants the bananas to the next field to continue the process. His pond is loaded with fish who eat the mosquito larvae and he is "inoculating" neighbor's ponds with fish. All in all, an extraordinary place.
Tomorrow Angkor Wat.
Comments
ever!
i try to always be ready-that's my motto,'ever ready'. a wonderful time you've had in bb. hope sr is just as grand. love, leslie