Phenomenal Penguin: Siem Reap and Battambang

A few weeks ago, my friend Malcolm badgered me to accompany him on a week-long trip to Siem Reap and Battambang. Most people, of course, go to Siem Reap to visit the Angkor temples, and having spent about 15 days exploring them on three previous trips, I didn't feel much compulsion to do so again. I really wanted to see Battambang, though, so off we went. We'd read that the government is rebuilding National Road 5 between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and the bus ride is punishing, so we bought tickets for the boat that travels up the Tonle Sap River. Good move. It was more costly, but the same amount of time and far more comfortable.

Malcolm spent two days going around the Angkor temples on a rented bicycle, and I spent one. They are glorious, and you should most certainly see them before you die, but it is in fact possible to have seen enough of them. One evening in town, though, we cut through the grounds of Wat Preah Enkosei on our way to an out-of-the-way restaurant. In the moonlight, we spotted what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient temple, and we returned the next morning to explore in the daylight. Sure enough, behind the wat stands what remains of Prasat Preah Enkosei -- two of three original towers dating back to the 10th century.

Although nowhere near as enormous or elaborate as Angkor Wat or Bayon, this little ruin is especially endearing for its quiet location on the wat's grounds and for the exceptionally well-preserved lintel relief illustrating the Churning of the Sea of Milk. This mythical event also appears in a massive wall relief in Angkor Wat, but you'll be nearly trampled by fellow visitors while you look at it.

Nearby, in front of a heap of Angkor-era rubble with a banyan tree growing out of it, a novice monk sat on a memorial stupa, contemplating his mobile phone.

Siem Reap is packed with guest houses, hotels, cafes, restaurants, and all manner of other businesses that cater to the massive numbers of tourists -- more than a million a year. It's still possible, though, to find some great spots if you make a bit of effort. I especially enjoyed this guest house sign.

After a few days, we travelled west by bus to Battambang, a provincial capital that's famous for its French colonial architecture and relaxed atmosphere. I knew that Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, but I hadn't realised that its population is only 200,000 (compared to the 1.3 million in Phnom Penh). For some inexplicable reason, I'd got into the habit, whenever I'm nearly flattened by a moto going the wrong way at night without a headlight -- an occurrence more frequent than you might think -- of muttering, "That's it! I'm moving to Battambang." Well, now I've seen Battambang, and I may need to rethink that, either investing in some night-vision goggles or coming up with a new oath to mutter. Lovely little city, really, but... a tad small.

Shop-houses facing the river

National Bank of Cambodia

In the evenings, everyone comes out to 'daauh-leeng', or walk about on the riverside, where a park offers exercise equipment and a reflexology walk, with pebbles jutting out of cement to apply pressure to all those important spots on the soles of one's feet. I tried one of these in KL and found it excruciating, but it seems to be popular with the ladies of Battambang.

One day Malcolm and I rented mountain bikes and set out on a 20-some mile cruise around the Battambang countryside over some paved roads and some rutted dirt tracks. We visited a couple more temples along the way (note the one perched atop the ledge in the photo below), but mostly, it was just a delight to be out in the countryside on the bikes.

Since the notion of kayaking didn't appeal to Malcolm, I went by tuktuk to Green Orange Kayaks (named after the famous Battambang green-skinned oranges) and rented a one-person boat. What a great little NGO! They run a school, and they use the kayak rentals to fund it, at least partially. The boat and gear were in great condition, and the directions were simple: paddle 12km up the river to the ferry landing opposite the old market in the center of town.

It struck me how much produce the Cambodians grow along riverbanks. I would guess most of the vegetables on sale in the market came from fields that I paddled past. Other than birds, and calls from people on the banks, the only sound I heard was the occasional generator-run irrigation pump.

A riverside corn field

I noticed several instances of posts driven into the river bed, enclosing floating, tangled clumps of branches and brambles. I happened to see a couple of men in a boat near one of these, and I asked what it was. They looked at me blankly. "Somrap dtrey?" I asked. "Baat, baat -- somrap dtrey!" (Yes, yes, for fish!) And that, my dears, is where my piscine Khmer vocabulary ran out. I have no idea what relationship these structures have to fish -- do they trap the fish? Do the fish live and feed amongst them? How do the people catch the fish?

For fish. That's all I know.

Then there are the scenes that don't usually show up in travellers' accounts. The patch of utterly deforested and eroding riverbank with scrawny goats in bamboo-fenced corrals, rickety wooden houses teetering at the edge of the bank... This is a Cham village, the Cham being Cambodian Muslims. I know painfully little about the Cham people, except that they were fiercely persecuted by the Khmer Rouge, and that they are now granted freedom of religion by the constitution. I have no idea if the Cham are generally more impoverished than any other Cambodians, but it caught my attention that this village was in stark contrast to the lush and relatively prosperous looking farms I'd passed earlier. Still many things to learn about the Kingdom.

As I paddled into Battambang city, I noticed that the whole riverfront is lined with, if not the flags of every nation, the flags of most, just like those that adorn Phnom Penh's riverfront. Especially when arriving by boat, these flags seem very welcoming, no matter what country you might have come from.

See the Jalur Gemilang, Malaysian friends?

Not long after I paddled up to the ferry landing, the two fellows from Green Orange Kayaks scrambled down the bank to relieve me of my craft. I asked them if they were going to paddle it back (about a 2.5-hour jaunt), and they laughed.