"There were no cars and people traveled by foot or boat, ox or buffalo carts, horse or elephant.....there were only four bicycles at the time, with wood rimmed wheels and solid rubber tires." This was Battambang (pronounced Batdambong) towards the end of the 1800's.

I got back to the Battambang bus station, which is nothing more than a spot on a corner of a street . I met Francois on the bus coming here. He is from South Africa and we ended up sharing a private room for $5, ($2.50 each).

On the way to the hotel, I passed a school. It is the "USA International School". The slogan on the sign says, "The More English You Speak, The More You Know". People in Cambodia love the U.S. One Cambodian told me that everyone wants to live in America.

As I walk around town I see the naked man that I saw the last time I was here. He never wears anything but a T-shirt. He is a young looking man and walks all around town. I guess the police don't bother with him since he could not pay any bribe money.

I see the oranges that are not orange. They are green. The inside is orange but the peeling stays green. I bought some of he Logan fruit. It is one of my favorite fruits.

I stopped in a Wat. One of they backpackers said the monks here liked to talk English with foreigners . I didn't talk to any monks, but a 12 year old boy was waiting for his class to start at noon. They go in shifts here, some mornings, some evenings. He spoke good English and we talked for about 20 minutes, probably. He showed me his English books and asked me some questions.
 
Cambodians are a friendly, hard-working people. living in a corrupt society. Bribes to government officials are not uncommon. The communist Peoples_Party controls Cambodia and has for 30 years or more. They have signs everywhere you go. There is an election every five years. The next one is in a couple of months, July 2013. All the citizens I have talked to want the oppostion party to win the election. The leader of it is friendly to America and believes in the free market way of commerce. They don't believe the party has a chance of winning the election, though. I have been told repeatedly that the communist have a lot of Vietnamese in the country that are not citizens and not eleligle to vote, but yet they do and the thousands of votes always ensure a communist victory . Also, they say the present government has the money to assure the outcome of the election.


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I was talking on facebook with one of my young Cambodian friends one time. He is going to a university and I encouraged him to keep working at his studies. The conversation went like this (I copied and pasted from our conversation):

Me: yes, work hard and make good grades in school. Someday make big money.

Young Cambodian: Yes your country like this but in cambodia the government corruption that for example when i want to work in the government so if u want to pass in a position i need to pay for the government if i do not pay i will not pass exam!!! we can say money under table.i will go to bed now. good night.
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 I asked another university student if he considered joining the military . I thought it would be a secure job for him for a while. He told me to pass the physical to get into the military he would have to pay a $1,000 bribe to the examiner. Otherwise he would not pass.

One restaurant I have been frequenting pays a weekly bribe to the local police to be able to set tables up outside their doors without harassment.

One day I asked Villa and Samnang if they had visited the crocodile farm in Battambang. They had not, so we agreed to go one day. At the farm you walk on top of the walls surrounding the crocodiles. There is no fencing rails on most of the walkway and it would be easy to fall into the pits and become croc food. It would not be a good place to bring kids or anyone that does not have good balance.

Back to the story of Battambang:The Governor or Battambang in the late 1800's held an auction. He was selling the rights to sell alcohol. A chinese man, Tang Sea, bought the rights . He now owned the right to have the only bar in town. He could also arrest and punish anyone who produced liquor if he felt it would cause him to lose money. He brewed a drink for the common people from rice and palm sugar. The wealthy people drank imported French liquor.Battambang had plenty of fish in those days, so people never ate small fish. like they do today. They used the small fish for fish oil and to feed to the slaves that wealthy land owners had.Crocodile meat was easy to find in the markets and was as popular as pork is now. The people didn't eat beef because the oxen and water buffalo were used for farming. The punishment for stealing these animals was instant death when arrested.Dirt roads connected the villages (they still do today). The dirt roads and rivers were used for transportation. People traveled by ox cart, or boat, foot, horse or elephant.There were only 4 bicycles at the time. They had wooden rims and solid rubber tires. They were owned by traders and attracted large crowds wherever they road them .Punishments ranged from beheading with a sword to public flogging. A 6 foot ladder-like device was put around a persons neck to prevent them from traveling too far. During interrogations, a lever was tightened around a persons head until their eyes popped out, unless they confessed. There was a 16 pound iron ball and chain that was attached around a persons ankle.The Governor owned a sharp sword that he called "The Black Lady". It was used for beheading. Once the sword was drawn from its scabbard, it had to be used to execute two people. If a prisioner was the only one to be executed he had to wait until a second person came along to be executed.It is told that one man that was to be excuted was allowed to go home to stay with his family until a second person was to be executed. While working on his roof one day a messenger came to tell him the second person had be sentenced and he must return for the exectution. He was so terrified he fell off his roof and was taken to the town center where he and the other victim were beheaded .  End of Battambang Story

Piseth works at the hotel where I stay in Battambang. We have talked a lot in the lobby and he has gone with me during the day when he is not working to walk around town and show me where things are. We walked through a market one day not far from the hotel. It is a market the Cambodians use but foreign visitors don't really know about it. He pointed out things about the food and items that Cambodians use that I found very interesting. A woman was making circles from flowers. I asked what it was and he told me it was a certain flower that is used as an air freshener. Then, he bought me one and took it to my room and hung it on the headboard. These people don't have much, but they like to do little things for you.

His 20th birthday was coming up and he asked me to go with him to his homeland village. It was just 30 kilometers from Battambang. We caught a 6 a.m. bus and went to his village. He lived a mile or two out of town down some dirt roads . It had rained the day before and the roads were muddy with pools of water standing.

I met his mother and brother and sister. Then later some uncles and aunts and cousins. None of them spoke English, but all smiled and welcomed me.

Piseth, his mother, sister, and I walked down the muddy roads about 30 minutes to an outdoor market. There we bought food for the birthday party. We bought meat and vegetables and fruit, all from different sellers. They don't serve meat like we do, as a separate food. The meat is cut in small pieces and put on a dish. You get a spoonful or two to add to your rice or noodles. The meat Piseths mother bought was cut in small pieces in a container and when she selected the type she wanted it was measured out and weighed and put in a small plastic bag, then tied with a rubber band. The meat in these markets is never refrigerated, just displayed on the tables in the heat all day. 

It took a while shopping and when we left we had a number of small bags containing rice and noodles and other Cambodian foods . The market was large and made up of tents and sometimes no overhead coverings, just a table set up with whatever the person had to sell. You buy just one thing from each person.

We hired two motos to take us back to the house. Family and friends came over later and we sat on a bamboo mat outside where the food was placed in the center, Cambodian style. Piseth lit the 3 candles on the small cake he ordered before leaving Battambang. It was the smallest cake I have ever seen. It was a western type cake with icing and his name on it. We sang happy birthday to him and everyone took a tiny piece of the cake. The pieces would hardly be enough to be considered a sample in the U.S. But, here the sweets are not like ours, with lots of sugar, so a very tiny piece was more than enough for everyone. They also had Cambodian cake. It does not even resemble what we call cake, though. It is rice wrapped in something and does not really even taste like cake to me, but was popular with the Cambodians . It is not sweet either, at least not our version of sweet.

Half of the small cake was left after everyone got a piece and Piseth took some icing on his fingers and rubbed it on the face of his little niece. This started it. Soon everyone was taking icing from the cake and smearing it on everyone. I saw Piseths mother on the other side of the bamboo mat, watching the commotion. No one had iced her yet. I got some cake icing and she saw me looking at her and started to run around the bamboo mat. I finally caught her and smeared icing on both sides of her face. Everyone was now iced. It was sticky and the next thing was to go to the rain barrels and clean up. Kids and adults were laughing and having a lot of fun. 

Later, 8 of us went bicycle riding through the countryside. They showed me some trees with fruit on it that is used to make glue and scotch tape. Also, one tree had fruit that was used to make the color 'black'. It was not only a fun ride, but very informative for me .

You can see how poor the people in the village are. Piseths mother cooked the small chicken pieces in a pot outside the house under a little shed using wood. But, poverty does not keep these people from smiling and sharing all that they have with others. Of course, when we went shopping I insisted on paying for everything. I said the meal was my birthday present to Piseth. The whole meal was probably less than $10, nothing to me but was a lot to them. About 15 people came and there was a lot of food left over. Most of the food was rice and fruit. It was an excellent meal and a fun day. I really enjoy seeing how the locals live. I like the food and watching how the families interact. They all seem so close and enjoy being together, regardless of age.

The houses are built on stilts because the area floods during the rainy season. The kids have to wade knee deep water or more to go to school. The parents that work must do the same . I asked if there are snakes in the water and Piseth said yes. The roads here are already very muddy with just a little rain. I cannot image what life here is like when the flooding starts.
 
One other thing I want to mention is the Jesuit Church we passed walking to Piseths house. I have only seen a few churches while in all of Asia. Of course most of the people are Buddhist here, so there are not many churches of any kind.

I got a picture of a cart and pony. I have seen a lot of these around the villages and towns in Cambodia but this is the first time I got a picture of one. 

I am never short of things to do in Cambodia because of the welcoming nature of the people here.