A Round-the-World Journey to Find a New Home #12

Battambang has a lazy atmosphere; it's the second largest city in Cambodia but feels like a small market town. There isn't a whole lot to do but walk, laze and soak up the atmosphere. We planned only a couple of nights here, just taking in some of the local scenery on a couple of moto's (motorcycle taxi's, there is no public transport system in Cambodia, only privately owned buses that go from tourist spot to tourist spot. Share taxi's and moto's are the only transport by road for locals and tourists). Our guys on the moto's were great, they knew the area and spoke good English (better than my Cambodian anyway) and they whisked us off along the unmade back roads of Battambang.

The land is barren and red/brown, fields that can be farmed effectively are left during the dry season mostly as the ground becomes hard and cracked with heat. The roadside vegetation is coloured the same as the roads, the dust being kicked up by passersby on bikes wrapped in scarves Arab style to keep the dust from the facial orifices.

We rode along large irrigation channels towards a great lake, although not so great at the moment. The channels likewise low in water, the feed off from the lake being restricted. Along the banks, little enclaves of fields were being farmed with heavy daily irrigation from small petrol driven water pumps. The hard work gave a vibrant green lush patch work look to the fields surrounded by the bleak parchedness, even the trees and bushes that lined the fields benefited from the regular soaking of the ground. Rice and string beans were being painstakingly nurtured by groups of women bent double, while their kids played in the water channels alongside. Apparently after the monsoon the whole countryside will radiate with this emerald green sheen of fresh vegetation, something I find hard to imagine looking at the land as it is.

Despite the harsh landscape, the baking sun and the everlasting dust that stings the eyes, everybody seems contented, everybody is friendly; waving and shouting the only word most of them know, "hello, hello, hello", then giggling and getting all excited when they get a response. We seem so feeble back at home when we fail to cope with too much rain or snow, when a hosepipe ban comes in the summer. We moan, we grouch, we complain. Here the people have survived famine, desperation, the communist terror of Pol Pot, then the invasion of Vietnam, all of this happening within my lifetime.

Almost half of the country's population was brutally wiped out, now they still have to constantly suffer the hardships of monsoons and blistering dry heat, too much water for three months, and too little for six months later on. The time of the monsoon till the waters fade is the only respite when they can successfully farm the staple diet of rice, the vegetable season is almost over, the fruits are being harvested and it's only two more months till middle April when the heat is at it's hottest, food is low and money is scarce. To top it all, it's low season for tourists, it's just too dammed hot!!! The rains will come in August with the start of the monsoon.

We sit by the dam side, watching the children play in the waters of the run off, floating in giant rubber inner tubes. We read while the older women do their washing. The dams in Cambodia were the one good thing that the Khmer Rouge (KR) did, built a successful structure of waterways to irrigate the farmland. They were good at a few other things too, none of them nice...

It didn't take long for us to acquire the obligatory fashion accessory. A group of children saw, came and conquered, interested in playing around us, gradually coming closer and being more forward. They inspected our belongings, Eddie's cheap bracelets from BKK, the ring we had made for her in Nepal, our books, my watch and of course, my eye ring. A girl of 8-ish carried her younger brother on her hips, the way her mother had showed her, a skill handed down very early in life. The older children controlling the younger, but being equally as inquisitive.

Our next stop is Phnom Sampeau, one of our guides stayed with our bikes to stop them being escorted away by pilfering locals, while the other guy showed us around. On top of sail boat mountains a small Pagoda and some natural caves, all innocent enough surely... not really, these places have literally been splattered with a horrific history, for this area on the hill, once thought of as somewhere to come for good luck, was the province's killing field. Our guide, who we will call Sam because I can't pronounce or properly remember his real name, hiked us up the road to the hill. It was just after lunch and really hot, really damn hot, I mean hot, hot, we're sweating a bucket load, my underwear is soaked from sweat running down my back, and the salt stings my eyes. We stop at the Pagoda, it's in the shade, and Sam tells us a story.

Most Cambodian families are large; lots of children, for the parents rely on their children to look after them later in life. Sam is an only child, he had a sister but she died because there was no basic medicine to help her heal during the time of Pol Pot. The natural herbal medicines that they were forced to rely on didn't help. His father was taken away from them and murdered by the KR before Sam could have another brother or sister. He was only five at the time.

But he was lucky he was too young to be taken to work in slave labour, or be trained in the art of killing for the communist regime of the KR. Over 3 million Cambodians are estimated to have been murdered, about a million more than is officially recognized. This accounted for almost half of the population at that time. Anybody religious, educated or wealthy were prime targets. Some people were taken because they wore glasses. The aim was to make a two class country, working class and peasants, people that are easily led and controlled by force and terror. Innocent people were forced to sign untrue confessions, lots of them, confessing to being against communism, for being soldiers against the regime, to being educated or a doctor...then they would be butchered for being traitors.

The Pagoda we sat at and in the shade of was once used to house the prisoners, where they were tortured in front of the others, and murdered. There used to be large bamboo pipes from within to the outside to drain away the blood of throat slit Cambodians. The walls were splattered with red sprays and spots, I felt gutted, and sore within as he told us of his stories. Thankfully the pagoda has now been renovated, scrubbed down and refurbished with the images of Buddha, donated and paid for by the local townspeople and surrounding farmers. Monks now inhabit the mountain and novices sleep in the Pagoda that houses the history of blood and terror, yet it still was a weird feeling to step inside, and to imagine the thousands of deaths that occurred here.

The Caves we walked to were "guarded" by an aging monk whom we gave a donation to pass, and contain mountains of gathered bones and skeletons, skulls and recognizable hip bones and long bones. Pieces of electric wire used for "electrification torture" and clothes of victims are still there, the remnants of a past the locals want to, but can't forget. A small feeble pile of bones and clothes lay further inside one of the caves, around them old burnt out incense sticks protrude from the ground where people have laid prayers for the dead and lost. We were shown drop holes high in the roofs of the caves, where people were thrown down, often they survived, suffering only broken bones, but unable to move they faded away, slowly dying of starvation. Sometimes throats were slit with the jagged edges of sugar palm leaves that resemble a rough wood saw more than a knife, not a clean cut, more of a rip slicing through essential arteries if you were lucky, it meant a quicker death. It saves on bullets you know...

The pile of bodies became so amassed and high that more and more people survived the fall, landing on dead bodies only 4 or 5 meters below, only to die a longer, slower, miserably painful death of starvation and dehydration, while more bodies were dumped upon them. Days maybe...

There's an area where people were tied up and a hook placed up their nostrils then hung high enough to hold the prisoner in place while the KR removed lungs and liver through a vertical slit in the chest cavity. The KR were known to eat these organs and drink the blood mixed with wine to make them stronger soldiers, this is the power of one man in the name of communism!

I have, of course, heard of the Khmer Rouge and their atrocities, but it doesn't hit home until the truth of the terror is explained to you, being there, listening to a victim, himself now only 30, younger than me!!! Seeing the years old, dried, black blood covering the walls of the caves where bodies bounced off, the floors strewn with bones and clothes. Many people only had one set of clothes; they wore them continuously, washing them as they bathed themselves. The bones couldn't identify many bodies, but they knew who was dead by the clothes that were left.

Sam managed one year of university in Phnom Penh, the family couldn't finance the second year. So now he tells stories of true horrors and history, as well as myths and legends of the surrounding areas. At 30 he can remember the past, the difficulties after Pol Pot, the invasion of the Vietnamese, the gathering of his country, the lack of food and work. He is now married and has a child of two and supports his mother as well by driving a moto for tourists. It's too late for him to pick up his education, but he promises it will be better for his children. Cambodia now has a population of 11 million and rising. The KR is in the past and the country is growing again.

We sat at the top of another hill, Sam telling us stories of how the mountains (large hills, really) got their names: Sail Boat mountain, Chicken and Duck mountain, how Siem Reap and Phnom Penh got theirs. He's a smiley, happy person with a heart of gold. We can look out over the flat land of Cambodia (bar the few large hills in the area), and see the dusty red brown fields and tracks for miles. We laugh and joke and chat, and I feel so lucky.

On a lighter point, we found a great little local eatery, not in any of the guide books, a true local joint where huge jugs of beers are 7000 riel ($1.75USD-ish) and no other tourists. The beef dish I ordered and I so looked forward to turned up raw...Hmmmm. I like rare but... Never mind, a quick gesticulative conversation and it was whipped away and brought back stir fried to perfection.

The Battambang police were having a party on the next table, and the "merry" officers were partaking in a spot of karaoke, a favorite sport in S.E. Asia. A few exchanges of smiles at the singers and we are joined by the commander in chief and his aids (the women left back at their table) and much drinking of beer ensued. One of the waiters who was studying English came as our willing translator (anything to get a bit of practice in, you know) and a stilted if not basic conversation commenced, ending in a solemn promise from the chief that now we were in with the local fuzz, we would have no problem in the Battambang Province. We left shaking hands and waving, each of us practicing the words "good bye" in the other's language.

So it was such a top time we returned the next night, our final night in Battambang Province, having had no problems so far, and ordered the house specialty "soup stall", a broth fondue on the table top where you make your own noodle soup. Veg garlic, plenty of noodles, beef meatballs and mushrooms. Oh, and a plate of mixed animal's insides! Now I like to try a bit of everything, I've eaten chicken livers and hearts on a stick, BBQ'd by a BKK food vendor on the streets (and loved it) - pig's liver, calves liver, ox tongue and the such like. I can now add pig's brain and intestine to my list of accomplishments. I am still getting up the nerve to try the fried cockroaches and BBQ'd bird fetus they serve on the roadside here.

Next stop Phnom Penh...