City of the Lost Stick

I've gone into detailed and loving rants on my love of trains on this blog before, so it should come as no surprise that I immediately wanted to go visit Battambang's main attraction: The Bamboo Train. The train won't be around for much longer, maybe two more months. Cambodia is building its rail network again, and these less than sturdy contraptions on the same track as speeding freight trains is indeed a bad idea.

The bamboo train isn't much of a train. You've got two sets of wheels, balance a bamboo platform on top of it, set in the same type of motor that powers a motorcycle, and off you go. It gets up to a fair speed, maybe thirty something kilometers an hour, and goes through pretty Battambang countryside.

It is less than pleasant when two seconds after you start the rains come down and batter your face for twenty minutes as you fly through them. The ride back was lovely though. It was also the most ridiculously touristy thing I've done in quite a while.

Battambang itself is a lovely town, small and sleepy on a river despite being second only to Phnom Penh in terms of size. I went with my friend Becca for the weekend, and we spent day 1 (after a long nap, those night buses are less than restful) exploring the countryside with new friends and an excellent tuk-tuk driver. Day 2 was spent at the tasty Café Eden, wandering around town and into galleries, and having fresh orange juice from the famous Battambang oranges.

Train Journey through Vietnam

As a kid my family would go on a local train's dinner ride. I don't remember much, just vague emotional impressions of happiness and excitement and that glorious Washington scenery. Once I got a little older I would ride it by myself to visit my sister at college in Bellingham, or south to see relatives in Portland. I'd make excuses for not driving, or being driven. Why the train was best for the environment, that it was safer. I honestly simply wanted to be on a journey.

Cars make me sleepy or nauseous, planes eliminate the feeling of having gone anywhere. So quickly and in such a different realm do they transport you, moving through cotton high in the sky makes a journey seem more a break from reality. Trains though, trains follow the curve of the land and wind through it with a romance I don't find most places. Trains let you walk around, sleep more comfortably. You see what's outside and have nothing to do put pay attention to it.

From Ho Chi Minh we took the train to Hoi An (and would take it again from Hue to Ho Chi Minh but for that trip I was drugged up on cold medicine so there are no pictures or thoughts really). We boarded at night, too dark to see outside and instead the rocking motion put me to sleep.

Woke at six to new light filtering through the window. Ignored the time and spent the next few hours taking shots that would be blurry and obstructed and never convey the majesty of the land. Drifted to sleep, woke, read, watched, repeat. Landscape kept shifting between farms, coast, mountains, cities, and jungle.

I'm often alone in my devotion to the railway. The bathrooms are disgusting, trains are slow, tracing their path with a relaxed air. It’s a foolish sensibility I have, but trains are still my favorite way to travel.