Battambang

Battambang is Cambodia’s second largest city with about 140,000 people. It’s a sleepy dusty place, much more relaxed than anywhere else we have been in Cambodia. It’s a colonial outpost, and the French imposed a grid street system……and there is a street numbered 1.5 and 2.5, in between streets 1, 2 and 3! That is where all the action is at, in these half streets (street pics above). There was “Independence Day” yesterday, and we queried independence from what. We were told it was from French colonization……they don’t speak of independence from the Khmer Rouge, and speak only in hushed tones about it. I queried a recent graduate accountant as to whether his generation talks much about the Khmer Rouge days, and he asked me why they should – that they look to the future! (I also learned that education at all levels is bought here – through extra tuition with your teacher. Those that pay, pass).
You can browse in the markets, without being hounded. You are not constantly targeted as a potential ATM like hole in the wall. We ended up staying a full week here, doing very little…..well…..doing quite a bit, but with no pre-plan of what we were going to do! The luxury of exploring a place we had no preconceptions about….just letting things unfold. A very relaxing week – with time for reflection and lots of swimming.

It took Daniel all of about two days to find out the best street food, and the most popular dish served there – a chicken and udon style noodle Khmer dish. His modus operandi is to cruise about on his own, unencumbered by kids or wife…..spot the places with the crowds, observe what is being eaten, find out what is being cooked, sample and taste, then bring all of us back to enjoy! Works well for us! In Battambang it has been at a riverside street food haunt, called 999. We missed the street food in Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, but enjoyed some in Phnom Penh.

There was also the odd treat, which made Ilona the happiest little camper. It’s not often that we get smiles like this from her on this journey!
Battambang is in the West of Cambodia, not the wild-wild west of the province of Pailin, which was given as an administrative amnesty to Khmer Rouge 3rd in command in the 1990s, after he sided with the government. Pailin turned into a retirement refuge for Khmer Rouge pensioners. Apparently it is the most dense area in the world with land mines……..some were planted/placed as late as 1998.
We were warned not to stray of the beaten path, and have taken that warning seriously.

Many people were repatriated to Battambang in the pogroms of 1975, and many were killed here. There are killing fields and killing locations all over the place, beside ruined temples, beside or in Wats that were taken over by the Khmer Rouge.

I met a very interesting Austrian Anthropologist, doing a PhD on art in Battambang. It is marketed as a town with many artists, but he views it as a marketing ploy only, and is struggling to find art and creativity (as he defines it). The Pol Pot regime stifled creativity, in the social and economic uniformity it was trying to attain. We talked about fear and art (inability to express yourself due to political regime), art used as therapy (especially in the refugee camps, and through the famed circus here in Battambang), creativity and sociability, creative destruction (which he argued is non-existent here), planned versus spontaneous art, and many many more interesting ideas.
Then I discover this article in the Cambodian Times (English version):
Which was underneath this (dictates on how to create art!):

We rented a couple of motorbikes for a few days, and spent another few days walking or on push bikes.

The things you do that you wouldn’t do at home! We have been playing a game of spotting how many people are on one motorbike. I have seen 4, but Tadhg spotted 5 in Hanoi. Daniel, Ilona and Tadhg did a three personed moto ride!

The bikes got us out into the countryside, which has been described as National Geographic picture perfect.
It certainly is very pretty. Large flat tracts of rice plains, peppered with ‘phnom’s or hills.

We even visited some more ancient temples (the kids were tricked into going to see what was at the top of the steps, instead of telling them there was a temple; and they still weren’t too keen!).

We came across a few marriage processions, funeral processions and unidentified parades. In this picture, the groom’s family were bearing gifts to the bride’s house, deep in the countryside. I felt privileged to witness it, and there were smiles all around, even to us as observers.

We observed the maddest mass exodus of millions of bats (estimate of 2 million) from a cave at dusk, in Phnom Sampoeu. It was crazy. They just kept spilling out, filing in amazing patterned swoops and swirls.
Our only trouble was a massive thunder and lightening storm had crept up behind us, and we had to get back to Battanbang (about 15km away in pounding rain and lightening, on a motorbike. We were thoroughly soaked to the skin, and I was a bit afraid driving in the dark wet night, with Ilona clinging to me.

So today, we leave Battambang and Cambodia. I think that Cambodia is in a massive state of flux. I think my perceptions (and perhaps practices) have been altered, from my time spent here. Contradictory influences to my norms have left me with much introspection, in a space of wondering, not sure whether it will lead to a cultural transformation…..but it has heightened my sense of cultural awareness.