Battambang

First stop in Cambodia was the city of Battambang where I spent a day sight seeing on the back of a motorbike. This meant being whisked off to a couple of hill top temples, one dating back to the 11th Century AD, going for a ride on a bamboo train and a visit to the old Pepsi bottling plant abdandoned when schhh, you know who came to town (no, not Coca Cola. Or Schweppes). Oh, and a close encounter with a Khmer rouge.

Wat Bayan, an Angkor period temple

Civil war hill top temple addition

The kind of Khmer rouge I like. Rough round the edges but basically benign.


On the bamboo train.
These are lightweight carts made of bamboo slats on a wooden frame that sit on two freewheeling boggies, the whole lot being driven by a 6HP engine. When you meet another bamboo train coming the other way the lightest train is dismantled to make way for the heavier train which takes about two minutes. If you have a motorbike on your cart that's a trump card. Sadly these will soon be gone when the train line is upgraded.