28th February 2012
Battambang, Cambodia
After finishing up at the temples of Angkor I decided to make tracks for the city of Battambang which rests on the banks of the Sangker river in the northwest of Cambodia. My time in South East Asia is unfortunately fast approaching it's end as I fly out over to Sydney on the 11th March and with so much still to do - FULL MOON PARTY - I have regrettably had to fast forward through Cambodia but I did want to stop in Battambang as I had heard about a curious bamboo train which many travellers stop off to see before heading back into Thailand at Poipet. On the morning of the 28th then, I met my pre-arranged tuk tuk driver and along with a German lad I had met at the Royal Hotel I was staying at, we headed off out into the countryside surrounding Battambang in search of this infamous bamboo train. Bouncing along the highway out of the city on non-existent suspension, it felt like stepping back twenty years as we sped past small rural villages and caught glimpses of farmers as they ploughed their land. Cutting off the main highway onto a dirt track we rolled our way over potholes leaving a cloud of red dust in our wake and looking out of the open sides of the tuk tuk, flashes of every day rural Cambodian life passed by. Minutes later we had arrived at the Battambang bamboo train station and pulled up to a very surreal Asian version of platform nine and three quarters. When I say station I use the word in it's loosest possible sense as what we were faced by was a rickety wooden shack that looked out upon a very twisted-looking set of scrawny railway tracks. In my imagination I somehow had expected to see a bamboo locomotive billowing steam from it's guttural engine when I first read about this surreal attraction but then realised that I was in Cambodia and that I would have to adjust my expectations accordingly. Lined up on either side of the buckled tracks were several flat 3m long wooden frames which had been constructed by tying several bamboo slats together. Attached to the back of these novelty passenger platforms were small gasoline engines which power the bamboo trains at a max speed of 15 km/h down a set of tracks that cut through the countryside in a straight line towards a small village about half an hour away before returning home. Approaching the rickety "train" it was necessary to lift the bamboo platform onto the tracks, placing them carefully on a set of steel axle rollers which looked worryingly unsafe but what's the worst that could happen? Well, actually there was a lot that could go wrong.....like DYING... but I tried not think about that. So along with blonde German man - forgot his name - and Mike, a 40 year old cruise ship tour operator from North London, we all hopped on the bamboo platform and waited as our driver climbed aboard behind us to start up the mighty lawnmower engine that would power us out to certain death. As we picked up speed I gazed down at the tracks and stared in horror/amusement at the dilapidated and misaligned rails which looked like two silver snakes slithering along the ground before us. Once the train had got into it's stride I reckon we were bustling along at the max speed which on a bamboo train is downright irresponsible but bloody good fun. As we hurtled through the countryside the grass and bushes on either side of the track had started to reclaim the track back for nature and with no carriage we were constantly whipped by small branches and leaves that peered out at us as we flashed by. About ten minutes into the journey I looked up and noticed that another train was coming in the other direction, and apparently the rules on this railway is that whichever train has the fewer passengers has to give way. The genius of the operation is that unlike actual trains that need to pull onto a side-rail, we just picked our train up, waited for the other to pass through and then reassembled it back on the tracks to continue our journey! Once unsafely back on the steel axles, our driver fired up the engine and we once again found ourselves dashing through the Battambang countryside in a blur of bamboo. Above us, a raging sun beat fiercely down from it's zenith in the azure sky; a throne it had reached having followed a golden arc all morning with the precision of a compass. A quick pit stop at a small village followed before making our way back to the central station with the wind in our hair and petrified expressions on our faces.
I have had an idea and it's called "Biggle Vision". Using my camera I'm going to start taking videos of special things that I come across so you can see the trip through my eyes. 'Biggles Vision #1' takes you for a ride on the bamboo train...
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