As I did with the previous post, I will post lots of pictures about our October 7th day tour to the Kamping Poy Dam, the Killing Caves, wat and bat caves and add cations to them where appropriate. Just finished adding the pictures and hope there aren't too many for you; hard for me to choose which ones of the 279 I took that day to include! My hope is that you get a sense of what we saw and what we experienced.
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| BB's market area above and below |
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| More flooding in BB. |
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| Sights from our tuk tuk |
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| Lotus plants above and below. |
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| Happy getting a lotus plant for us to look at up and close. |
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| Lotus plants for sale. |
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| The motorcycle was the preferred method of transport for almost all Cambodians in the BB area; we saw motorcycles carrying up to 4 or even 5 people at a time including infants and toddlers. |
We stopped on the side of the road as we saw so many people gathered in one spot; they were watching men fishing with nets.
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| What the roads looked like above and below - just a tad bumpy, wouldn't you say! |
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| Views of homes from the tuk tuk above and below; you can see how almost inaccessible some of the homes are b/c of the flooding. |
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| More fishing using nets. |
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| Looking at this now, I should have been more careful where I sat as the "seat" was none too safe! |
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| Saw probably an easy hundred of these tractors/carts in Cambodia. |
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| Our initial goal on 10/7 was visiting the Kamping Poy Dam located 36 kms SW of BB; there's a recreational lake as well as a massive hand-built dam stretching for about 8 kms between 2 hillsides. "As many as 10,000 Cambodians are thought to have perished during the construction, worked to death under the shadow of executions, malnutrition and disease." |
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| Photos above and below taken from the dam; see the umbrella covered area on the bottom left hand corner of the picture? Swimmers could leave their phones and other belongings there for a fee. They also had to pay 500 riel to climb the ladders after swimming> |
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| Hungry anyone! |
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| A view of another boat on the lake. One of the reasons Happy suggested we visit the dam and lake was so we could take a boat ride and see more lotus pads and birds; the cost for the hour long boat ride was $7.50 for both Steven and me and no cost for Happy. The boat's driver "promised" us we'd see lots of birds - alas that was not the case but we did enjoy getting out on the lake and seeing all the lotus pads. We got quite concerned with the time though once on the lake b/c the engine got stuck in the weeds/pads and we still had a long ways to drive to see the Killing Caves and the bats leaving their caves about 4:30. |
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| Views from our boat. |
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| Consider yourselves lucky as I've only included a few photos of the lotus plants and leaves; I was intrigued by them as you might gather. Basically all parts of the lotus plants can be used: the pods for eating, the large leaves for wrapping items especially before the advent of plastic bags, and the stringy fibers for making clothes, etc. |
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| Heading back to the dam. |
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| The dam and lake area is a popular place for the locals to visit on the weekends. |
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| More views of the flooded areas. |
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| Finally, we stop for lunch at 2:30 near Wat Phnom Sampeau and the Killing Caves. |
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| En route to the restaurant's bathroom: see the open door in the back center by the tree. |
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| Glad I don't need to brush my teeth here every day. |
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| Walking up the winding road to the summit of Wat Phnom Sampeau and the nearby Killing Caves. |
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| Walking down to the Killing Caves after seeing the wat. |
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| The Khmer Rouge threw bodies into the cave from this hole above. |
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| A view of the killing cave from the steps. |
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| Knowing about the Killing Caves is one thing but seeing them first hand was very chilling. |
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| More steps to climb. |
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| An East German cannon left over by the Khmer Rouge. |
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| Spectacular views from the summit of Wat Phnom Sampeau. |
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| Buddhist nuns; the nun on the right had been talking on her cell just before I took the picture. |
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| Look at the sign: I could never figure out the political geography in Cambodia in terms of Village, then Commune, then District and finally Province. |
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| Our final goal for the day: the bat caves. |
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| How nice it was to sit and relax and wait for the bats after a longish day. |
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| Twice a month a company, hired by the commune that owns the bat caves,goes into the caves to retrieve the bat poop b/c it makes good compost! |
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| Yup, 5 on the motorcycle! |
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| Yet another wat, all of 10 minutes from Wat Phnom Sampeau. |
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| Felt I was in Hawaii after Steven presented me with the lovely flower to wear in my hair! |
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| See the bats flying in a S formation in the background? |
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| I bet you we easily saw hundreds and hundreds of political party signs in Cambodia, especially in the BB area. The Cambodian People's Party is the party in power. |
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| I sure wouldn't want to be on the top of this truck hurtling down the highway! |
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| One of the opposition party signs. |
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The Cambodia National Rescue Party is the main opposition party in Cambodia. There was a national election in July and the Cambodian People's Party maintained control of the country b/c there was, according to many, massive vote fraud. Happy, our driver/guide while in Battambang, was actively involved with the National Rescue Party and witnessed first hand, he said, the vote fraud. Happy discussed how and he and many others were actively protesting the election results and planned to join in upcoming nationwide demonstrations against the People's Party. He generously gave me a Cambodian National Rescue Party hat he had received while volunteering during the election.
FYI - we paid Happy $20 for the day tour ( plus paid for his lunch) which began when he picked us up at 8 and ended at 6. |
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