Kompong Chhnang isn't a provincial town that has
obvious attractions for the tourist hordes visiting
Cambodia these days. For most, they catch a glimpse of it
as they whiz by on the speedboat between Phnom Penh and
Siem Reap or for a handful, it's a brief stop on
Highway 5 as they take the bumpy route between the capital
and Battambang. For me, it was an opportunity to while away
some time in a sleepy riverside town and to seek out some
ancient temples I'd heard about in the area.
It was standing room only for late arrivals as the Ho
Wah Genting air-con bus left the southwest side of Phnom
Penh's central market on the dot at 8am. Earlier,
I'd eaten breakfast at the Dara Reang Sey hotel and got
a moto to the bus stop, paid 4,500 riel for my ticket and
luckily grabbed the last empty seat. Highway 5, running
alongside the Tonle Sap river, was badly rutted and in poor
condition and it took ninety minutes to reach the Prek Kdam
ferry where a long line of trucks waited their turn to
cross.
Once we'd passed the border marker into Kompong
Chhnang province the flooded lowlands disappeared and were
replaced by bright green rice fields. An hour away from our
destination and we came to a grinding halt. The Khmer woman
next to me, on holiday from her home in New York,
translated the driver's instruction for everyone to get
off the bus as the bridge ahead was broken. A short walk
through the throng milling around the scene and across the
rickety bridge and we were soon on our way aboard the
replacement bus, reaching the centre of Kompong Chhnang,
half an hour before mid-day.
I'd been warned that accommodation in town was
fairly limited, so I established my bearings and headed for
the Victory Monument where I knew that Sokha's
guesthouse was close by. Located in a quiet, leafy lane,
Sokha was on hand to welcome me, his first tourist for a
week and in broken English recalled that he'd heard of
some old 'prasats' over the river. My second floor
room was a comfortable double with fan, TV and bathroom for
$8. I headed back out for a look around and was immediately
swamped by children from two nearby schools, who
enthusiastically shouted their hello's, a feature which
became commonplace throughout my short stay in town.
The heat was already unbearable and dust clouds had left
a thick coat of brownish-red on everything in sight. Near
the central market I collared a group of card-playing moto
drivers but none spoke English, although undeterred, I
hired the friendliest to drive me around town. Very quickly
I realised Kompong Chhnang was well spread out from one end
to the other. A two kilometre causeway joins the larger
part of town that straddles the Highway with the bustling
waterfront area. In between is shanty stilt housing, a
distinctive water-tower and a colourful wat, while the boat
dock area was a mess, smelly and busy with food traders and
rows upon rows of those clay pots that you see everywhere
in town. A few run-down French colonial buildings,
including a tired-looking hotel, face out onto the Tonle
Sap river.
Exploring both halves of town, we stopped at a couple of
wats, one by the river and another, Wat Talmiat, both of
which had the usual indoor paintings lining the walls,
although a couple of friendly monks at the latter pagoda
were determined not to let me go until I'd answered
every conceivable question they could make up. I saw the
gates of the dormant runway, the largest in the country,
which has been earmarked for development but the heat was
overwhelming so I took a drinks break at the Mekong
restaurant, with its English menu, and watched a
kick-boxing match on tv with a small posse of policeman.
They told me that a bar run by an expat called the Halfway
Pub had closed a few months earlier, but only after I
returned to the cafe after a fruitless search!
As I walked back to Sokha's through the tree-lined
side streets and past numerous colonial buildings in the
administrative quarter of town, I got into a conversation
with an off-duty policeman outside the local prison. Chhoun
Chom-Roune spoke a smattering of English and jumped at the
chance to help me find the Angkorean-era temples over the
river the next day, as they were located in his home
district and it would enable him to visit his family at the
same time. After my initial concerns that finding the
temples may prove tricky, a plan was forming and we agreed
to meet at 6am the following morning.
After a shower and a snooze, I walked into the
pitch-black streets to find a place to eat but the lively
Samaki restaurant was housing a private party and
everywhere else appeared closed. Traffic was light, shadowy
figures passed close by and I struck up a conversation with
a male student after he opened up with the popular
icebreaker, 'hello, what is your name'. He
explained that nothing much happened on Friday nights or
any night for that matter and I resigned myself to
returning to the Mekong restaurant for supper. The tv was
switched on as I arrived and the service was lightning
quick for their only customer. Unfortunately, the fried
chicken and fries were awful.
I searched for a tikalok stand but without success,
although a full moon brightened up the walk back to
Sokha's and I was back in my room by 8.30pm. In the
morning, Chhoun was half an hour late but it didn't
matter as we took a moto to the dock and negotiated with
the young boatwomen for one of their craft to ferry us
across to the other side of the wide river. At $4 it was an
expensive ride but turned out to be a pleasant and
enjoyable twenty-five minute voyage across a placid and
windless Tonle Sap river and past a handful of floating
houses and the regular passenger ferry. Waiting for us at
the small dock at Kompong Leaeng was one of Chhoun's
brothers, Ne, and before we began our exploration, we
stopped for a beef and noodle breakfast at a market stall.
Around the corner we paused at Chhoun's family home to
meet his parents and get another moto, with Nat, another
brother, as driver.
Ne, my driver and the youngest of seven brothers, held
up three fingers when I asked him how many ancient temples
he knew of in the vicinity. His moto was well-padded with
good suspension and despite the sandy track, waterlogged in
places, was the most comfortable moto I'd ever ridden.
We stopped at the hamlet of Phnom Dar where most of the
villagers gathered round to see the foreigner playing
football with the youngsters and ninety minutes after
arriving on the far bank, we saw our first temple, an
eighth century structure.
Prasat Srei is a substantial single brick tower with
flying palaces (or representations of the temple in
miniature) on the sides, three false doors and damaged
lintels. It was located in the grounds of a small school
and we shared tea with two young monks and two older laymen
before moving on. An hour later, we left our moto in Chunok
village and walked along the tops of a series of dykes and
open fields, past bemused workers, to another brick temple,
in the shade of a large tree. This was Prasat Koh Kralor
and whilst less imposing than the first temple, it too had
flying palaces, denoting the same period of construction, a
broken linga inside and part of a lintel on the ground.
The walk back to the village took about ten minutes, so
we rested in the shade of one of the houses where girls
were pounding and cooking the poorly graded rice. It tasted
pretty foul as did their rice wine but they seemed to find
my attempt at pounding the rice amusing enough. A few
kilometres along the track, Chhoun acknowledged a shout
from a police hut at the entrance to a small village and we
pulled over to say hello to one of his police colleagues.
Word quickly spread and more of his chums arrived, so we
took seats inside the hut and enjoyed a half-hour break
from the sun, while Chhoun, his brothers and friends
enjoyed more rice wine and a plate of dried fish. If this
is an example of the life of a village policeman then where
do I apply!
An hour later we searched for our final temple after
turning back towards our starting point. We were still
fifteen kilometres away from Chhoun's family home when
we were directed to a temple a little way across the dry
fields. It turned out to be a ten minute walk, along a
single sandy path, where we saw some local women and
children washing in a muddy pool. They showed us how they
dug a hole and waited for it to fill with clear water
despite the ground being bone dry on the surface. The two
brick towers themselves were in a ruined state and devoid
of decoration, with the bricks of a middle third tower
scattered at our feet. Two young girls who'd followed
us across the fields called the temple Prasat Leaq Pdey.
Back on the road, we dissected a wedding party which was
taking place under an awning stretched across the sandy
track before reaching Chhoun's family home just before
1pm.
Our temple-hunting adventures had lasted more than five
hours so I was more than happy to accept Chhoun's
invitation to eat lunch with his family and to rest before
returning across the river. Their large home on stilts had
a wide open veranda where all of us sat in shade, Chhoun
and myself, his father Sarun and his mother, seven
brothers, two sisters and their children, as well as two
friends of his father who were a little disappointed that I
spoke no French. A tasty meal of chicken and fish, washed
down with rice wine and bottled water and followed by a
siesta was just what I needed after the morning's
exertions. I was keen to return to Phnom Penh for a
birthday party later that evening, so at 3pm Chhoun and I
said our goodbyes, I paid his two brothers for their
services and we chartered a larger boat to return us to the
opposite boat dock, across the river which was as still as
a millpond.
As we passed the bus stop near the Victory Monument, I
asked the bus driver to wait for five minutes while I
collected my bag from Sokha's, which he did. I thanked
Chhoun for his help and friendship and gave him a small
gift before ending my brief stay in Kompong Chhnang. With
the bridge still down, we changed buses again and finally
rolled into Phnom Penh's central market at 7pm. The
ride was terribly bumpy and that induced one youngster near
me to suffer acute travel sickness for the whole trip.
After a quick shower at my hotel, I joined the party at
the Wang Dome restaurant in 240 Street celebrating the
birthday of a friend, Kulikar, the partner of Nick, Lonely
Planet's Cambodia author. The buffet was delicious and
far removed from my meal at the Mekong restaurant in
Kompong Chhnang the night before and amongst the guests I
met a VSO worker from my hometown - a small world indeed.
Srun and Reangsey picked me up and delivered me back to my
hotel a little before midnight to round off a contrasting
but thoroughly enjoyable two days.
For more information on Andy's travels, visit his
website which has lots of travelogue stories with pictures.
"http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.brouwer/index.htm">http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.brouwer/index.htm
The Globetrotters eNewsletter