Floating Villages

Adventure to Battambong

 We bought bus tickets to
Battambong for $6. each including a
pick up from our hotel in the morning.
The bus had AC but was less than we had been promised but who can complain at that price. BB is an artsy village in NW Cambodia where 30% of the people in the countryside make rice papers for spring rolls for local and export to other provinces. We wentto experience the most scenic river trip in the country linking BB by boat to Siem Reap.
Debora, always at the ready booked us a room at the Star Hotel, a 4star for $17. On arrival a Tuk-Tuk driver was there to meet us and take  us to our hotel. Of course we hired him for the afternoon to take us to the Bamboo train.

Misaligned rails and vertiginous bridges left by the French explain why the train clicks and clacks SE. Each bamboo train, known as a nori consists of 3 m long wooden frame, covered by ultralight bamboo that rests on 2 barbell like bogies, the aft one connected by fan belts to a 6HP engine. Pile on the people or 3 tonnes of rice and it can cruise at 15 km/hr.



Rice sheath used as fuel for the brick oven

Battambang's bomboo train is one of the worlds all-time classic rail journeys from O'Dambon, on the East bank's old french bridge. Getting there by Tuktuk is a bumpy, dusty trail 'dancing road'. 

The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the most ineluctable problem faced on a single-track line, when a train is coming for the opposite direction.
Simple, one car is quickly dissembled and set on the ground beside the tracks so the other can pass. The rule is that the car with the fewest passengers has to cede priority.

All bamboo trains must dismount and disassemble when they hear a Cambodian train tooting its horn from a great distance.


Beehive shaped ovens for firing bricks



holding a fresh brick









Great way to end the day



Rice Paper Process

Battambang- population 140,000

Bamboo Scaffolding

Lots of fresh juice and smoothies
make  hot day easier to cope with

 30% of the rural people surrounding Battambang make their living making rice papers used in spring rolls for the rest of the country.
After the papers are pressed they are dropped onto a bamboo frame and left to dry in the sunlight.

Sometimes the racks are placed on the roadside when that is the only space that gets sunlight.

Wrench to make rice paste

Basket of rice papers after drying on rack



Filling wooden press with ride
paste.



After water comes to a light boil, paste is squeezed
through wooden sieve to make fine noodles.



Rice noodle are only cooked
 for 1 minute



Quickly rinse in river water 3 times

 

Ready to serve
Just add a few veggies







Monkey See, Monkey Do

 Day 5 and Debora was on a mission to see some monkeys. We walked through some temple grounds and in the back we discovered them. I remember the coniving creatures from Africa and India but they are so cute. Children in the park knew to keep their distance so when one stole peanuts from a little girl I had to step in to the rescue, distract the monkey and salvage some of the peanuts as fodder for the child to feed others.

Pick pocket in action

 Smiling children everywhere.  This monkey stole the milk box from one of the kids and
 immediately knew what to do. When the milk was coming out too slowly he tore the box
open like a pro.

 

The baby monkey gets left over mango pit and eats it clean.