Battambang Railway Station

I often wonder what the Expats in Cambodia think. Usually they just sit in bars getting drunk or smoking weed in ever increasing frequency or quantity because their bodies have become accustomed to the drugs. But occasionally they do spout off some rubbish. Sometimes about something interesting, like the railway being connected through to Thailand from Cambodia. I ask them where they heard that and they usually site some online publication. I usually don't rely on such fictitious pieces of work and go out and look at infrastructure myself. Go out and find the answers. Who, what, where, how, and when. Or stay in the bar for another drink I guess and do your reporting of facts from your laptop.

The picture that was the choice for the start of the blog is not random. It has real meaning. The clock at Battambang's railway station always says 8:02. It is obviously high noon, you can tell by the shadow cast from the clock. But not at Battambang's railway station, it is now and I am certain will always be 8:02.

Way back in 2008 the Asia development bank, AusAID and Toll thought it would be a splendid idea to refurbish the rail system in Cambodia and immediately opened the money faucet. It was due for completion in 2009. So lets see what progress has been made I guess, after all some random Expat had read it in some bogus online article somewhere. I grabbed my trusty camera and headed down to the local station. After all, one of the things that you would refurbish would be those old relics of railway stations located around Cambodia. People could then buy tickets to go on the train. A full fledged passenger railway station if you will. And there is even locomotive sheds here. Great for housing equipment and as repair shops. Clear away the vegetation from the tracks and make it recognizable as an operating railway station again. The date is late 2014 after all.

The above photos were taken at the railway station in late 2014. I think they show the stunning lack of progress that has been made in the area of rail transport in Cambodia. The last photo shows the 6 track wide entrance to the station, the tracks are under that grass somewhere I assure you. 

One of the problems that Cambodia has is that it fails to export high value goods. This would earn more in valuable foreign currency that would lift this country out of the economic mire that has been the case for the last 40 years. A true manufacturing base would be great to see in this, which you have to term, the basket case economy of ASEAN. But there is no real impetuous to actually do any of this. There is aid money pouring in from overseas. The graduates from local Universities will probably go into the family business of bringing in cheap products from overseas and selling them at a marked up price. Their symbol of pride, the certificate for a Bachelor of Masters in some odd discipline hanging on the wall gathering dust. The social gap between the have and have not's rapidly turning into an insurmountable chasm. 

Khmer owned and operated businesses employing both skilled and unskilled workers alike. Profits and wages staying in the country to be spent and support other businesses here. It sounds like a grand dream, and as I type this I realize that is still, and will probably always be 8:02 at the Battambang Railway Station. 

 

Phnom Sampeou - Killing cave, grand view and millions of bats

Phnom Sampeou is a natural site located just 12 kilometers from Battambang city on National Road number 57. This is the road to Pailin, and in the not to distant past was called Road number 10. The French not being particularly inventive when it came to making up the names for the streets in this part of the world.
Phnom in Khmer means mountain and the Sampeou (Sampov) part of the name means a type of ship. I guess if you squint a little and use your imagination than the resemblance to a ship works. Just not a type of ship that I am familiar with. But atop this 100 meter high hill, which starts with a journey of 700 steps, stands a pagoda and three natural caves, Pkasla, Lakhaon and Aksopheak. You can of course cheat and take a moto taxi, or bring your own bike for a journey up the concrete road.

Pkasla cave is full of uprooted stones and is considered important because it is where Phnom Sampeou come to celebrate their weddings. Some of these caves were used by the Khmer Rouge. The mountain was an important site for the battles between the Khmer Rouge and military forces in the 1980's. The legacy can be seen it the anti aircraft guns staged around the top of the mountain and in the fact that there are human remains. This being a product of the Khmer Rouge's murderous campaigns against their own Khmer people. There are shrines to the people that died here in the caves. These are the killing caves. Similar to many sites around Cambodia where the intelligent, artistic, scholars or just people that disagreed with the establishment ended up. Bullets being expensive, in this case they simply threw them down the cave to their deaths. In other parts of Cambodia, it was hammers, shovels or various other farming implements that dispatched there victims.

I seem to make references to the Khmer Rouge in many of my posts. Unfortunately in Cambodia their legacy still lives on in the country today. The mass killing of millions of people was devastating for this small SE Asian country. All families in this land were effected.

Phnom Sampeou rests on the northern end of the Dtam Rai (elephant) Mountains, which fall into the Gulf of Thailand. To the east you can see the Cardamon Mountains. In fact, from the top of this hill you get the sense of how flat the region is, but with these Rocky outcrops there comes the chance of mineral deposits.

A good time to visit this attraction is around 2 in the afternoon. Pay your tourist tax and hire a moto to take you up the mountain. I have explored the mountain on my own motor scooter, but always seem to end up getting slightly lost. After taking in the Killing caves, the pagoda and giant Buddha, where you have the chance to feed the wild monkeys, you can make your way down to the bat caves at the bottom. At dusk, millions of small bats come streaming out of the cave here in a steady stream towards the surrounding countryside. There they have a night of stuffing themselves with the local insects to look forward too.

Phnom Sampeou is a name that every Khmer will be familiar with, largely due to the legend of Rumsay Sok.
Pro tip if you decide to visit this lovely place. Don't stand under the stream of bats. You will think that is starting to rain ..... but the rain is of a more golden colour. A gift from the bats.