Cambopedia

Began a song by Sin Sisamuth, Cambodia’s most well-known singer of all time. The song tells the lifestyle of Cambodians in Battambang, its beautiful nature, and its romantic scene.

We stepped off the bus in Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city. Motorbike taxi drivers waited to ferry us to our hotel. Normally, I would have rejected their services, but the midday heat along with their offer to drive us for free hooked me. My driver’s name was Sambath, or Bath, and he spoke immaculate English. He asked me the usual questions: how long have you been in Cambodia, how long will you stay in Battambang, where are you from? I told him, as I tell everyone, “I’m an American, but I live in Japan.” He smiled and said an American living in Japan had just stayed with him, in the homestay he ran. My ears perked up.

Rat meat is not food to most people, but not to some in Battambang, Cambodia’s second-largest city. Without surprise, the province is widely known for its producitivty rice output, where rice fields are home to rats. And During the Khmer Rouge era, from 1975 to 1979, most Cambodians got used to this delicious food.

And with rice comes rats - grain-fattened paddy rats that connoisseurs say are delicious barbecued, boiled or roasted in a heady mixture of lemongrass, turmeric and garlic.
‘The last rice has just been harvested, so the rats are ready. They are coming onto the market now, and the next three months while they are in season are very good business for us,’ says restaurateur Chhrut Hen, 24.

Blogger at Holding Hands in Phnom Penh lets us know that world traveling cyclists, Ben and Gen, are now in Cambodia after making a long trip to travel the world.

Ben and Gen are cyclists and are 10 months into a world tour. They estimate that they will be traveling by bicycle for another 2 years before getting back home to Quebec in Canada. We met through a website called Warm Showers, which I joined after finishing my own bicycle tour from England to Gibraltar, and as I watched them rolling away this morning, down the road towards the sea, I was reminded of my own promise to myself that I would do another, longer, cycle tour someday.

Known to many for its fame in many other things, Battambang also offers beautiful lanscape of life on the river.

When I went to Cambodia last month, I took a boat ride from the temples at Ankor to a little city called Battambang. It was interesting to see the villages, some floating on the river, and the people and how they travel. The boat with all the people was part of a 3 boat caravan apparently going to a wedding. Some people were singing and partying on the first boat. The big tower on the other picture is a contraption used for fishing.

Cambodia is no Malaysia. What are doing in Cambodia? Do you Khmer/Cambodian food and cheap stuff?

The food is good — I’m eating a lot more haha. 2 servings of rice and being more adventurous than usual with food tasting. Kenny’s tried frogs and god knows what else. I haven’t reached that level yet hah. Loads of pictures to show you all and even more stories to tell…
Oh and all the beef and pork is strangely tough. Don’t know what they feed the cows and pigs here. Scenery on the way from Battambang to Phnom Penh was nice. Loads of nonsense to see. Better than Malaysia hahahaha.

It might be a unique experience to sightsee Battambang town by cycling. For now it is possible. Looking for personal transport as in the Netherlands?

During my visit to Battambang in January, I literally bumped into the half dozen cyclists who were on the first-ever Pepy Ride in Cambodia. They were resting - well, they were actually trying their hand at a cooking class at the Smokin’ Pot restaurant - after many days on the road as part of their five week trip visiting schools and orphanages and spreading the Pepy message, ‘Protect the Earth.

To many travelers, Cambodia is known for its infamous killing fields. The prison of horror of the past is not always the choice of every tourist, but perhaps it is where many of them can actually learn the history of the country.

The purpose of our trip to Phnom Penh was to visit the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields, two places were horrific events took place during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Our guide for the day was excellent and we learned more from him than we could have from a billion books. It’s amazing to me that a few times a week he spends hours walking through those places, remembering the things that he lived through as a young boy (like many people alive during that time he lost people to the Khmer Rouge). The prison was quite sobering and some of things you see and hear about you’d rather not. There are tons of pictures of people who were held there and executed at the Killing Fields, as well as lots of pictures of the (child) soldiers. There was also an excellent photography exhibit done by a foreigner where he took pictures of the pictures, capturing their reflections in the glass, with visitors in the shots, kind of “bringing them to life”. Hard to explain, but very cool, and it really does make you think about and feel the people that were lost.

Battambang: the Killing Caves

We went to the Killing Caves - in similar morbid style to the Killing Fields, these were caves where the Khmer Rouge threw Cambodian civilians into the caves and left them to die, if they had not already died from the fall.  The rock is actually still stained from all the blood shed at the time.