This week, we made it to Cambodia which is probably the most affordable country we have ever been to. We stayed in on of the nicest hotels in town with a swimming pool and free breakfast for $50 per night. We could have stayed in much cheaper places that were still comfortable. All our laundry was cleaned, dried and folded for $2. I badly needed a haircut and he only wanted to charge me $1.25. I was generous and gave him $2. Restaurants were also very affordable. It is very easy to have a good homecooked Cambodian meal for $3 including a drink. We hired a tuk-tuk driver to give us a 6 hour tour of the sites and he only wanted to charge us $20. This is one of those places where is would be easy for Westerners to easily retire here on not much money.
More importantly than the reasonable prices, we were intrigued to learn about this Southeast Asian country, which is not often a hot topic among American travelers. Cambodia has had a rough and sad history and any trip here should include some of the sites to learn about the past. They have dealt with American bombing during the Vietnam War (known as the American War in this part of the world), political turmoil, civil war, starvation, and genocide. The war and atrocities of the late 70’s is still recent enough that it still greatly affects the current situation. The Khmer Rouge and the PolPot regime killed millions of the intellectuals that they considered could be a threat to the communist government. The country lost so many people to the Khmer Rouge genocide and fleeing but it hard to see that on the surface today. Cambodia has excellent farmlands and they were able to return their country to a workable economy and relative stability. People are very friendly and seem happy although anyone that lived through the wars have a lot of stories to tell. It is still a poor country and suffers from corruption. They call it a Democracy but is really a one party system still run by the “people’s party”. It also can’t really be considered Socialist country because things like health care and education are still not easily accessible to everyone. It has also not seen the manufacturing boom like some of the other Southeast Asia countries; it is still primarily a country filled with subsistence farmers.
We did a lot of walking around town just to get the vibe of Battambang. It is the 2nd biggest city in Cambodia but still has less than 200,000 people. There were always a ton of people in the streets and parks and it felt like a very active social city. Every night seemed like a weekend night with enjoying themselves. Of course that could be that it was just a bit cooler when the sun went down so people were relieved to be out of the 95 degree daytime heat. We walked through the markets, and several Buddhist temples. We felt very safe everywhere we went. We were able to meet-up again with some fellow nomads for another excellent dinner to share each others’ travels with some new friends.
We did several interesting things on our half-day tuk tuk tour. After our guide Sam gave us a Cambodia history lesson, we started with a tour of an Khmer old style raised hardwood house. The owner told us stories about how their family survived during the war. Then we went to the bamboo train. The commercial trains don’t run that often in Cambodia so years ago the locals started making carts with spare parts to transport goods on the rails – the railway was originally built during French colonization. Now, they have attached small engines and use them to give tourists a ride through the rice fields. Because this is a single-track rail, the bamboo carts are about 3 meters big, sitting on two axles, with a lawnmower motor as power. So if one cart comes across another coming the other direction, the bamboo cart is lifted off the axles to the side, the axles are also moved aside, and when the oncoming cart has passed, they just re-assemble the pieces to continue their onward journey. It was a bit hokey but it was pretty fun, and interesting to consider how it was (and still is) used to transport goods like rice, homewares, and goats, through the countryside. We got going pretty fast.
We also visited a family making rice noodle business. It was fun to see the whole process and how they have adapted their process to start using some crude motorized equipment. We then went to the temple on the mountain to see the killing caves. This area was where PolPot/Khmer Rouge would interrogate people, and if deemed enemies of the state, they would execute them and throw their bodies into the cave. This is this regions equivalent of killing fields, they just used a cave instead. Very unsettling to see and experience. Sam was an incredible guide, and also shared his personal experience of being a young boy during the Khmer Rouge time, and what it was like for him and his family – deeply personal, and important history for us to understand in our world view.
There were a lot of monkeys around which are fun to watch but we also have a healthy fear of getting to close to them. Some tourists don’t have that fear for some reason. We also the famous bat caves which house over 3 million bats. They come out at dusk to feed but we didn’t really care to hang out and watch them. We have seen a lot of bats in our life. Overall it was a fun day and we really recommend Sam our tuk-tuk guide. Let us know if you make it to Battambang and would like his number.
We spent 4 nights in Battambang which was just about right. It isn’t really a tourist town and we saw most of the big sights in a couple of days. We really enjoyed the vibe and could have stayed longer to just hang out and eat cheap Cambodian food and enjoy the festive atmosphere. Next stop is a 3 hour bus ride away- Siem Reap and the famous temples of Angkor Wat.