Sara's Serendiptious Salutations: 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.