Battambang in a Tuk Tuk
There is something about sitting in the back of a Tuk Tuk. The wind whipping your hair into a flurry until you can hardly see, the smell of exhaust fumes and street food assaulting you with a firm wallop, and the cold air settling into your skin. I love Tuk Tuks.
When I was in Cambodia this year, I met a guy named Kim and his Tuk Tuk.
Arriving in Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city, I was dumped by my minivan driver into a mob.
This is what it must feel like to be a celebrity I thought. But rather than cameras and paparazzi, it was a horde of tuk tuk drivers eager to catch one of us to put into their tuk tuks.
To be honest, after the precarious trip to Battambang, I was just happy to be on solid ground. My driver delighted in playing chicken with oncoming traffic. My muscles were tense and I was frankly ecstatic that I had managed to keep all my bodily fluids inside my body.
As I was tactfully declining another offer for a ride, mainly because my hotel was just around the corner, a man appeared at my elbow. He softly asked where I was from. New Zealand, I replied. He grinned, Kia roa he said, My name is Kim. I felt my checks bunch (yes. I am half chipmunk), as my smile greeted his, Kia roa I replied.
Kim's Tuk Tuk
He pushed his business card into my hand. Give me a call, he told me. I can show you around Battambang.
I replied that I would.
Two days later after the haze and craze of being in a new city started to settle inside my bones, I remembered Kim. I gave him a call and arranged a half day tour with him and his tuk tuk, Betty (I made this name up, but Betty seems like a great name for a tuk tuk).
First stop - Fishing Village and Farming
He relished in pointing out all the different crops and plants. From ones that I could recognise, mangos, bananas, and peppers, to the ones that looked like they were dragged out from an alien planet, spiky chaotic dragon fruit trees and chicken shit peppers (this is the actual name he gave us. Shit you not).
He stopped and pointed out something on a roadside stall. Rat, he told us. Crispy cooked straight from the field rat. Tasted like chicken he told me. I declined the offer of a grilled rat. Mostly because of my whole veganism thing.
The stop in the fishing village felt off. Have you heard the expression, human zoo? This is where people come to villages, and gawk at people who are just living their day to day lives. In Thailand, there is a village known as Longneck Karen Village and I hear it is just straight out exploitation.
This is the feeling I had when I arrived at the fishing village. I felt like I was invading their privacy as I wandered through that village. Peering inside their homes while they were relaxing, staring down at them on their fishing boats, or looking at them while they tended the harvest. It all felt a bit odd.
Train to Nowhere
I am going to take you to the true bamboo train in Battambang, not the new fake one, Kim informed me.
I had heard about the bamboo train of course. In all the travel guides of Battambang, the bamboo train is always featured. I did not, however, realise there were two. I was glad I was being brought to the original and not the shitty remake.
Upon arriving, I was greeted with a train resting placidly on the rails . But, it was a train like I have never really seen it before. It had no walls, or windows. No carriages, or steam. It was a bamboo construction on wheels. To make it move, fuel was poured in an engine at the back, which was then controlled by the driver with a little throttle. After paying, we hopped on board and sat down on two pillows at the front cross legged. Our driver hopped aboard after and started the engine in the back and away we went.
Faster and faster, we travelled down a single railway line. Bumping along as the countryside whizzed by, children waved and farmers starred on placidly as if this is a scene they have seen countless times before. And whenever another bamboo train headed towards us headlong, we all had to get off, dismantle the train and take it off the railway, until the other train had passed.
And so this went on until we arrived at a small village at the end.
“10 minutes,” our driver told us as he ambled off.
We did not have long to think about where he was going, until we were ushered into one of the bamboo constructed homes/shops by a young lady with a wide smile.
Come in she ushered us. Have a seat. Rest.
Soon she asked us if we wished for a drink. It was a hot day, so I agreed to a coconut water. As her mother hacked off the top of the coconut with a sharp looking hatchet in the back, I looked around. The walls were lined with clothes, from t-shirts that proclaimed that I had ridden the bamboo train, to colourful skirts and pants.
Oh no.
Here's the thing. I have trouble saying no. Whenever we go through markets, I am always the one who leaves armed with brackets, snacks, and a strange vase that I will have no idea what to do with when I get home. Perhaps the stall owners smell it on me. This inability to say no.
The girl complimented my red hair and blue eyes. Bemoaning the fact that her eyes and hair were boring black. I smiled nervously, while thinking we are never quite happy with what we have. She to me is beautiful. But to herself, she wished to be different. An interesting array of conversations unfolded while I sipped on my coconut water across from this smiley girl with black eyes. From marriage (it is quite expensive apparently to find a wife in Cambodia) to this trend of wanting fairer skin here. To why I was not married to my partner of four years yet, because that is a long time (he was sitting right next to me when this was asked, so I gave him the side eye). It is a conversation between cultures and I found myself leaning in to it, soaking it up.
And I did end up buying a skirt with pink elephants on it. Like I said, I can not say no.
The Bat Cave
The sun was setting. The sky melting into a sweet pink and we were again racing in the tuk tuk. We stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere . The only thing visible is a row of tuk tuks and a woman selling cheap warm beer and snacks.
Kim urges us forward. We have a bit of a hike in front of us apparently. Clamouring over rocks and trying to not fall on my face, I make my way up a cliff face. I mentally pat myself on the back for wearing hiking boots for this venture, though Kim is doing the whole thing in sandals. Hardcore mode.
Upon reaching the top, we are greeted with scattered groups of people. Some sipping warm beers, others are lovers canoodling, groups of friends chatting excitedly about the show about to start.
Kim ushered us to a rocky seat. Settling down, the sun melts and a stream of bats emerge from the cave behind us. Millions of bats. A seemingly endless river of clicking withering bats. Their forms ebb and flow, and I found myself bewitched by this show being put on by mother nature.
We watched this until the last vestiges of pinks and reds drained from the sky and we were the only ones left on the mountain face. And the bat wave was still flowing as we clambered down in the dark.
The second day that I met up with Kim, I felt that a sadness had settled over him. Like an unwanted cloak. He seemed tired, his shoulders hunched and his smile plastic. But, he still drove on.
We raced down the back streets of Battambang, on the hunt for bamboo sticky rice. A delicious street food where sticky rice and coconut is steamed inside a hollow bamboo stalk over an open fire. After devouring this snack, more food was needed of course. We stopped off at a small roadside operation where they were making rice paper rolls and selling crispy spring rolls. I watched the rice paper drying in the sun and batter being spread expertly on a hot stone, as I munched on my crispy snack.
Then we arrived at the well of shadows. The well of shadows is a memorial for the people who were murdered during the Khmer Rouge genocide.
This place felt heavy. During the Khmer Rouge, this place which was once a temple became a site of death and terror. The memorial itself has the skulls of those killed enveloped behind glass. Unseeing and still. Bas-relief images surround this wall of skulls, depicting the horror that they endured at this spot. Icy horror flooded my system as I read over this. I often become confused about how humans can do such atrocities to each other. I went to Hiroshima and felt the same thing. Seeing the shadowed outlines on the pavement of what were once people, before a nuclear bomb was dropped on them and turned their lives to dust. How could someone do that to millions of people. That is how I felt at the well of shadows. How can such evil exist?
I feel this heaviness and disbelief as I walk around the old prisons. One for the men, the other for the women. That’s the spot where the tortured people, Kim pointed out to a tired looking building to the side.
I left with a strange mix of emotions. I believe that honouring a country's past is important. We can not just sweep history under the rug. This happened. This happened in this country and we need to remember this horror. Some countries like to rewrite history, leaving out the parts which are ugly. This is incredibly disingenuous to the people.
But, it is not a tourist spot. I did not snap selfies or take any pics really. I did not talk about it on Instagram or even with friends. I suppose it was a private meeting between me and the past.
Kim was subdued when I returned to the Tuk Tuk. I did not blame him. This was the spot where his kinsmen slew his fellow kinsmen. I could not imagine what he was feeling.
He drops me off, with a wave of his hand and a parting word of “do not forget to review me on TripAdvisor” . Wise words, sir.
Tuk tuk drivers are the unsung heroes of Cambodia. They drive us noisy, sometimes drunk, often clueless tourists around for a small price. They endure early starts and late nights. They hand out words of wisdom, which people will later post on their social media as their own. And they work damn hard. Kim supports his whole family, his wife and children, his own parents. And he does this all with joy and a smile. And when the tourists dried up in Cambodia, Kim and the other drivers were left high and dry.
When Covid-19, began to attack the world I thought of these heroes. Many of them were looking after their families and extended families, mums, dads, wife and children, racing around the city looking for someone, anyone to hop in their tuk tuks for a ride. I will always remember the call that went out when you walked out onto the street. Tuk Tuk Sir. Tuk Tuk, please madam. Tuk Tuk, please. These calls to me are part of Cambodia. And I hope that when tourism kicks starts again, we hear them again.