Battambanging!

Photo of mine that appeared in the Phnom Penh Post

[You may wish to first read an earlier post on my Cambodia trip here]

Kid riding bicycle way too big for him
which I saw pretty often

The bus ride from Phnom Penh to Battambang was harrowing. It was supposed to be five hours, and ended up being six, and was about 45 minutes late taking off. But hey, it's Cambodia, and I had plenty of podcasts loaded up and three mostly unread New Yorker magazines to keep me busy, so I was OK.

Shiva is livin' large in Battambang

There were two disturbing things on the bus ride, though. First, we passed by what was the worst accident I have ever seen.

Well, I saw the aftermath, actually, and there were bloody bodies strewn about on the road, an overturned pickup truck, a seriously smashed semi truck and people desperately trying to help. It must have just happened within the past couple of minutes, and it was horrifying. Made me nervous as well to know that maybe if the bus had been delayed just a little less, I might have been part of the mess.

Then, about halfway into it, we came across a massively flooded area. Fortunately, a woman clamored for the bus to stop before we hit it so that people could collect their belongings from the bottom storage area, which I somehow spaced on.

Anyway, the bus driver stopped and I got my stuff, making the very crowded bus even more crammed. But had I not gotten my stuff, my clothes and video camera would have been completely soaked. The flooded area only took about a couple of minutes to drive through, but I held on to my stuff for the remainder of the trip anyway, despite the fact that I had no room to move my legs.


I had a booking at the King Hotel, which was on the river, for $23 a night - a pretty great deal, since the hotel is nice, clean, safe, offers free breakfast, wifi and a view of the river from the balcony. It's hard for a Westerner to imagine but $23/night is sort of splashing out in Battambang and I was only planning on staying a couple of nights and then would head back to Bangkok. Or so I thought at the time.

So what to do in Battambang that evening? Nothing, since it turned out that the moment I stepped out of the hotel, a torrential rain swept in. So I had a dinner at the King, a nice amok dish, and turned in for the night and was ready to fully check out the town the next day. I was particularly looking forward to seeing the Battambang circus that I had read of but didn't know much about.

I spent the next day walking around town, taking photos and enjoying the local flavor. Everything was much more quiet and pleasant than Phnom Penh, which really does seem like a big city comparatively, yet puny in comparison to Bangkok.

I particularly liked that not every single tuk tuk driver in Battambang tried to cajole me into taking a ride with them. I liked the architecture and temples. The only thing I saw that was a bit troubling was this:

A Mike Tyson-looking Cambodian guy having trouble eating and forgetting to wear shorts (or underwear).

I was really curious about the circus, which is run by an NGO, Phare Ponleu Selpak, Khmer for "Brightness of the Arts". Besides running the circus, Phare, which was founded in 1994, is a school for students - mostly disadvantaged kids, some with broken homes - who are trained to become circus performers, artists, dancers and musicians. Phare was started by refugees who were on the run from the Khmer Rouge and the school has benefited from many international volunteers who have helped develop the students' skills over the years.

The students from the first graduating classes have gone on to perform internationally and Phare is going strong as a most positive NGO doing something to make a real difference in children's lives. Without these skills, they wouldn't likely have much hope for the future as people who live in Battambang generally make less than $100 per month. It sounds crazy, but it's true. Maids in my hotel were earning $50/month, and that's good compared to some farmers or laborers who are working their tails off.

Flipping out at Phare

Anyway, back to my story. When I bought my ticket for the circus, this guy Gunnar comes up to me and says, "You're American, right?" He introduced himself and said he could tell that I was from the US because I wore a baseball cap (although I had bought the hat in Phnom Penh and it had a bamboo rattan pattern where a logo should be, so it wasn't like the cap was a total giveaway, but I digress...).

Anyway, Gunnar is from Minnesota and is a contortionist (!) who had been volunteering as a contortion teacher at Phare for six months and he showed me around the Phare area, including their art gallery, the training facilities and the lush place where I took the photo at the top of this blog entry.

The show itself was phenomenal. The performance wasn't flawless, but that didn't matter. The players still pulled off many seriously awesome acrobatic maneuvers and routines perfectly, and when they dropped a juggling pin or didn't quite stick a landing, they still smiled and tried again and you couldn't help but just root for them more. They had great determination and the joy in their eyes during their performance was invigorating!

More of my photos of Phare can be found here

Still from "Rouge" a performance that is a response to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge

I left the show feeling inspired and I wanted to learn more about it so I linked up with Gunnar and some of his friends, who volunteer at Phare and who are almost almost all French, for some drinks at the Madison - one of the only spots in Battambang that stays open late, and they serve up some killer crepes and very tasty coconuts.

I met a young artist named Kat there who also comes from Minnesota coincidentally (she and Gunnar had only met once or twice in Battambang before). Now I've only met like a one other person from Minnesota in my life, so I did think it was kind of weird to meet two people in the middle of Cambodia  on the same night who separately came from the North Star state.

Kat runs an art gallery called Make Maek in Battambang with an artist named Soviet Mao (his real name!!) who went to the art school at Phare and a bunch of us headed back there to chill and I grew further intrigued with this Battambang place. 

Kat in Make Maek gallery

Hanging at Make Maek

Many of the artists who developed their skills at Phare's art school (and some who didn't go to Phare) are now coming of age and pushing their creative talents further along and are starting up galleries and developing a scene. At a certain point that night, I realized that I ought to check out Battambang a little more and find out what makes it tick.

So I went back to the King Hotel and decided to increase my stay by a couple of nights - which soon became weeks. 

Coming up next on the blog: Battambang's bamboo train, 340 steps up to an ancient temple and a six hour boat ride to Siem Reap, where the adventure further unfolds.

Battambang at twilight

Some of Battambang's classic colonial architecture has been restored, some buildings have faded but still are cool.

(clockwise from top left) Battambang's temporarily closed train station; Gotta love a country that has a government office for cults; Battambang sunset silhouette