A drive across the countryside #Battambang gets onto you. Crossing the oozing green farm fields over a tuk-tuk ride, stopping by a small village bistro, and trying freshly grilled Tacos with tangy salad; getting tanned in the summery weather is so pleasing!!
After the Bamboo ride, the next stop was Killing cave, however, there were few stops in between.
Plov Thmey: The Hanging Bridge:
One of the stops was by the hanging bridge, connecting the villages residing at both sides of the river. The view of the place is so canvas perfect. Apart from using the bridge on foot, locals also carry their light vehicles like cycles or bikes over the bridge. The river though seems of decent flow during the dry season, the water level rises to few meters high during monsoon.
There is also a monastery just in front of the bridge, the surrounding village is quiet and it’s a good place for a 10 minutes break.
#KillingCave:
The tour to the Killing cave is divided into a few small parts. But before that a slight brief on it. Cambodia has gone through the darkest of times in their history in the recent past. The year 1975 to 78 had been a miserable torment for Cambodians. The country was being run by the Khmer Rouge party under the Pol Pot regime. A number of mass killings were carried out by the ruling party all across the country and the corpses were dumped under caves or into a huge grave.
Years later, a scarce number of survivors were found who could speak of the what-about of the holocaust, the bare bones were excavated from various deserted places. At present most of these places have been turned into monasteries and after sunset, those places are not to be visited by anyone.
So coming back to Killing Cave, it’s up above the hill. A tuk-tuk is not allowed up there, so there are two ways to go up the hills, one by walking (which takes 1 hour to do the entire tour) or by hiring a small truck (USD 3.00 pp), which of course is faster and easier.
First stop was the monastery: The place is very interesting, scenic, and depicts the Cambodian theism of life and death.
o From the monastery one walks to the killing cave, which has been turned into a Buddhist temple, also the unearthed skulls, bones are kept inside the temple to offer respect to the gone souls. The place is closed after 5 in the evening.
- There are few view points up there, so don’t miss your shot and Be careful of monkeys!!
#BatCave
I was very hesitant about this particular part of the sightseeing. As I thought, I had to go inside a sticky-stinky cave to see piles of Chiropteras born to do upside-down power yoga!!
Thankfully that was not the scene. The tourists go in front of the giant cave to see the bats and here, the bats come out of the cave and show themselves!
Be there by 5:30 pm (a little before/after) and the bats are coming out of the cave forming black broad curves on the sky at a stretch for 40 minutes. This is their time to hunt for bugs or whatever they like to eat; this long constant line is a sight to remember. They once again come to the cave at 4 am in the morning in the same manner for their day-long sleep time, but I doubt anyone will be interested to come at such time in the mid of no-where and with no light to get a clear view (though not considering the iron-hearted adventurers here).
That was my short time in #Battambang. Simple, scenic, and sober.
TurtleGotWings 