Bamboo trains and bat caves, temples and cafes: Battambang, Cambodia

Battambang, Cambodia!

This place is a bit of a gem that wasn’t expected… After leaving Siem Reap, Ally and I headed to Battambang, and we flippin LOVED IT! I can’t even remember who/what recommended it, and to be honest, the city isn’t anything special, there wasn’t much to do but go to a few cafes (which I have to admit were great) or the market, and out hotel sucked, but what came across our paths was 100% awesome! On the way there from Siem Reap, we met James and Vicki from England, on our bus… they were soo nice and we planned to meet up because we were in different hotels. We pre-booked a hotel on hostelworld.com that was recommended by Lonely Planet… well they need to update their shit. Haha I mean nothing bad happened, I just think that my sheets were probably used the night before by someone else, and not many people spoke English, but hey.. We’re in their country. Anyway, something awesome definitely came of it.

As we were getting off the bus, I was saying to Ally, “Shit… do we even know where we’re going, or where the hotel is from here?” and I bet you can guess the answer… Nope! Well, as we were getting off the bus once we arrived, there was a dude with a sign that had my name on it! WTF!?Hah! It was awesome! He was a tuk tuk driver from the hotel and we had a free ride! No idea how they knew when we’d be arriving, but all we thought was: hell yeah!!

After we arrived at the hotel the tuk tuk driver started telling us about these temples, bat caves, and bamboo train… this wasn’t in Lonely Planet at all, and at first I was skeptical and thought, awe mann I didn’t read about this in Lonely Planet, is this some sort of scam or something to get us to pay him to take us somewhere shitty? But then he seemed pretty excited about it.. he even got his phone out and showed us these videos and pictures of bats coming out of this cave. He said he could take us from 2 until sunset to these different places, and we agreed. It wasn’t too expensive and it seemed alright.

As he was leaving, he thanked us for giving him work for the day. That really hit my heart, and it especially made me rethink my attitude from a few minutes ago. I thought it was really sweet, and it made me really think about the people rather than the system/scams again; I was very humbled, and happy about it.

When we met up again at 2:00, he first gave us a little city tour.. he was such a sweet, nice guy. He was telling us about the history and facts of the city, he stopped at this statue so we could take a photo, then he took us to the bamboo train. I was a little confused because I figured it was just that: a train made out of bamboo. I figured it must run about once or twice an hour… hah, silly me. If a train is just something that rides on a track, then this was a train alright.. otherwise it was a flat bamboo apparatus that rides on a train track. This think felt like a full on roller coaster with no safety precautions! It was soo unbelievably fun, and soo unsafe!! But this is Asia, and a lot of shit that’s done here, is unsafe at home. . there are no safety standards, only fun! It was just Ally, the driver, and I on this thing, and it sure was bumpy! It took us to this small village about 30-45 minutes down the track. At one point we saw one stopped in front of us, and there was one in front of them coming from the opposite direction.. there is only one track, what must one do?? Nothing but only take it apart quick, remove it from the track, and allow the other to go past! Then put it back together and carry on! Hah! I freaking LOVED it! It was such a shockingly awesome day! When we got to the village, this little girl took us to a rice factory and showed us around, and then of course to her mother’s shop just outside. We held strong though and didn’t buy anything.

After returning back to the tuk tuk, our guy took us to the mountain with the bat cave, temples, and killing caves. It wasn’t time yet, which was intended, so he told us to walk to the top and there are killing caves to see and many temples. It was a bit tiring and hot and sweaty getting to the top.. we were a little resentful of the people on the back of motorbikes that had passed us.. but at least we got to really enjoy the scenery and deserved to make it to the top.

We saw some Buddha’s and some temples, but what we really wanted to see was these killing caves.. which after about 30 minutes of looking for them at the top, we eventually found. All we knew was what our guy told us.. it was really quite strange and sad. Apparently during their war (never learned about this back home – which pisses me off quite a bit), they used to us these caves to kill (clearly the name says that, I know). What they did was drop people to their death from the top (the ground), to the bottom where there were pretty jagged rocks that killed them. When we went it, it was basically one big grave; they had some of the skeletons in this cage thing that they opened up when we came down, to always remind them of the horrors that happened there and how terrible they were. It was pretty intense.

It was then time to head back down. As we were walking, we knew we were close because we started seeing some bats flyin around. Then more started streaming out.. then even more!! We (all the backpackers who also heard about all this from some tuk tuk drivers) stood there in awe and just watched. It was sooo COOL! I totally didn’t expect it to be that cool! Neither of us did! Then our guy took us to another area where we got a better view of them and with the sunset in the background! Their numbers really started to pick up too.. there was literally a thick stream of bats flying across the sky, and at one point, our guy came over and told us to watch what the noise does; then he made this noise in his hands and all the bats, together, started moving to another part of the sky above us away from the noise, because of their echolocation!

Ally and I both agree that it is probably one of the coolest natural occurrences we’ve ever seen with our own eyes.. millions of bats fly out of the cave every night..

We had such an amazing day, and were soo happy. :)

Its seriously the best feeling when you don’t have any expectations for something and it turns out the be good.. because then it ends up being amazing!! And! The best part is that it was all spur of the moment.

I’m not really sure why people come to Battambang, there really isn’t much else that special about the city other than some cafes and French architecture, and Lonely Planet didn’t say much about it.. but I’m sure glad we came!

<3 M

Next stop: Phnom Penh – the capital of Cambodia!! …another surprise!!