Battambang

 Battambang 

The central market.

A colonial building.

And another example.

Plus some traditional structures such as this tower in the centre of a roundabout...

...or the local museum...

                                                

...but the centre hasn't escaped development completely as there are some more modern buildings. It is lit up at night with blue lights. 

Then is was a tuktuk ride out of the city centre to ride the Bamboo Railway. 

Another group of tourists. It is a regular iron railway. The only thing tat is bamboo is the bed of the wagon that people sit on. The rails run from Battambang to Phnom Penh with two trains a day, one in each direction. After the trin have passed, some entreprrising locals have set up a small business giving people rides.

A view of the wagon in front of us. 

It is only single track. When you meet omeone going in the opposite direction, someone has to give way. The wagons are only small and light. They rest on two axles and can be lifted off easily. After the wagon has passed, the axles are put back on the rails and the bammboo bed of the wwagon placed on top. The wagons are powered by a small petrol lawnmower engine that powers a fan belt that turns the axle. The tracks is a series of short lengths, so there is a distibctive double bang as the wheels cross a joint.

The stop at the far end. There are a couple of shops selling cold drinks and clothes.

After a short break, we get back onto the wagons and go back the way we had come.

Crossing a bridge.

Then it was a long drive to Phnom Sampov, a temple area set on a steep limestone outcrop. 

The entrance.

We got out of the tuktuks and took 4x4s to get up the steep slopes of the mountain to reach the top.

The entrance.

Part of the religious complex.

Inside the tower.

There are some beautiful views, across farmland towards Thailand. But the mountain also has a sinister past. It was used by the Khmer Rouge as an execution site, known as the Killing Caves.

Steps doen to the caves.

The religious site inside the cave where some of the bones of vistims have been stored.

The Killing Cave. It is a hole in the ground with a vertical drop to the floor of the main section of cave. Victims would be thrown into the hole to fall to their death.

The view from the top across a large flat plain, known as the rice bowl of Cambodia. The area is the province that grows the largest amount of rice in the country. In the far distance is Battambang, Cambodia's third largest city, founded by the Khmer Empire in the 11th century.  

The temple at the very top of the mountain. 

On the steep sides of the mountain are several buddhas carved into the rock. One is a sleeping buddha.

Another is a giant statue of a sitting buddha.

Further along are more carved reliefs of buddhas.

And lastly, another entrance to a cave. Inside, millions of fruit bats roost during the day. At dusk they fly out in thick clouds of hungry bats. We waited a long time past dusk before we had our first glimpse of bats. After that they continued to flood out of the caves. We had all taken enough photos and drove back to Battambang whilst there were still more bats coming out of the caves.

The bats and caves have made the owners rich. They regularly go into the caves to dig out the bat poo. It is a useful fertiliser and it is sold to farmers. They claim that it helps farmers to grow some of the best black pepper in the world.