[Re]Creative Arts: Battambang and Kampot, Cambodia

When we heard about the Battambang Bamboo Train, a scenic ride through the rural countryside outside of town, we pictured a kitschy Thomas the Tank Engine-like train for kids at an amusement park. What we got, though, was more Tom Sawyer than Thomas. Picture Tom and Huck setting off southbound, with only a bamboo platform raised one foot above the rails, sitting atop (not even attached to) two axles, powered by a small rejiggered engine. As one of the top activities in Battambang as recommended by Tripadvisor, this Bamboo Train was…underwhelming. But, we had gone all the way out there already, so we hopped up onto the platform with an open mind and sat down on two pillows. Some feathers and a thin strip of bamboo was all that stood between us and the railroad tracks. Then, our “conductor” revved up the engine like a lawnmower, and we whizzed down the straight narrow-gauge track, feeling every imperfection in the rails as we flew over them at over 30 kph—which doesn’t sound like a lot, but feels much faster when you’re just gliding through the air with no shock absorbers and nothing keeping your butt down. When we reached the end of the line several kilometers later, we literally picked the “train” up off the tracks, switched the direction of the wheels, and then headed back to where we started. There wasn’t much to do other than observe the rice fields and mills for which Battambang is known, and try not to fall off and die.

The Bamboo Train was born out of a desire to repurpose the tools and routes that the locals had used to deliver people and freight up and down the villages along old rails, and is indicative of the kind of entrepreneurship that is taking place in Cambodia as the tourist industry expands out from Angkor Wat. Most visitors spend just a few days in the country, often only visiting Angkor Wat and maybe Phnom Penh before moving on to other Southeast Asian destinations. But Battambang, a small isolated city of about 150,000 in northwest Cambodia, and Kampot, a sleepy little coastal hangout and fishing port near the Vietnam border, are starting to become popular as welcoming destinations where one can experience everyday Khmer life outside the big cities of new and old.

Battambang felt a lot like Ipoh, Malaysia—just as hot, but smaller and more worn. There was an array of colonial buildings, this time of the mustard-yellow variety that the French built, along with the ubiquitous Chinese shophouses with which we were now quite familiar, and the occasional wall mural. It took us no more than a few hours to walk the city’s Heritage Trail, which passed by most of the historic “sites” in town. We therefore found ourselves more focused on the little things that make up a community. We strolled through the central market (with masks on), which interestingly featured a cluster of near-empty nail and hair salons; ate delicious homemade Chinese dumplings at a popular local shophouse; bought an ukulele at a music store where locals were gathered to practice the Tro Khmer, a local Cambodian fiddle made of coconut shell; watched parents pick up their kids up from school on motorbikes (as well as 14-year-olds drive themselves home on motorbikes); and observed some very good ping pong players at a table tennis center near the old abandoned train station. In other words, we quickly caught up to the speed of life in Battambang, which was the opposite of the Bamboo Train—very slow, and without many bumps at all.

Remarkably, for such a small, almost nondescript city, Battambang boasts a vibrant arts scene. We visited three impressive art galleries within the several-block confines of downtown. Due to the atrocities inflicted during the Khmer Rouge period in the 1970s (more on this in our next post for Phnom Penh), the depth and emotion of the art created by local Cambodian artists are profound. Chath Piersath’s exhibit at the Sangker Gallery was particularly gripping, reflecting both his childhood laboring under and ultimately escaping the Khmer Rouge, and his life as a refugee growing up in the U.S. His interactive exhibit featured his diaries dangling from the ceiling, allowing us to flip through poems and sketches that depicted his divided heart between the U.S. and Cambodia. (When we posted some photos of Chath’s exhibit on Instagram and tagged him, he unexpectedly got in touch with us directly, thanking us for supporting his art and sharing new poems with us. After exchanging a few messages and emails, he even shared his entire manuscript of memoirs and poems for his new book with Karen, who is slowly reading through it!)

Romcheik 5 Artspace picks up on the following generation who grew up in the crumbling ruins of post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. The working studio and gallery at Romcheik 5 were built by and features four artists and schoolmates who all endured extremely difficult childhoods. Abandoned by families who sold them off as laborers to Thailand, they were forced into the black market to toil at a young age. Thai authorities eventually rescued them and sent them back to Cambodia, though they were essentially dropped off at the border with nowhere to go. Suffering through a variety of ailments, including depression, insomnia, and drug addictions, they began to heal when NGOs helped them get back on their feet and encouraged them to open up about their challenges through art. Over time (and over an incredibly prolific body of work), art became a form of therapy for the men. Death marches, demons, environmental destruction, and the uncertain future were all themes explored in their beautiful and provocative works.

The immense suffering that the country has experienced in recent decades can be felt beyond the art world; in fact, it still trickles down to all aspects of life. Many businesses, including many restaurants that we patronized, double as social enterprises that help locals recover and rebuild. Epic Arts Café in Kampot trains disabled children in the service industry, while Café HOC in Battambang helps orphans get back on their feet. The Khmer fare at these educational centers, and in the rest of the country for that matter, was a pleasant surprise. We especially enjoyed fish amok, freshwater fish from the vast Tonle Sap Lake steamed with coconut curry in banana leaf, and lok lak, diced tender beef in a sugary sauce, as well as other noodle and curry dishes inspired by Cambodia’s Thai and Vietnamese neighbors (though we did not eat any bugs, which we also saw fairly frequently on menus, and which, in retrospect, we probably should have tried).

After a couple short but very enjoyable days in Battambang, we headed to Kampot on the southern coast, newly minted as one of The New York Times “52 Places to Go in 2020.” One of the reasons Kampot made the list this year was because its accessibility is increasing, as a new road between Phnom Penh and Kampot was scheduled to be completed early in the year, cutting the driving time in half. Well, New York Times, we’re here to report that the road is very much not finished, and in fact, it’s even worse right now, as it is a mess of languishing construction. The very bumpy and dusty ride took almost six hours, double what it was supposed to take. Maybe they should have bumped this one to 2021 (with or without coronavirus)!

I guess we should have expected the ride to take longer than advertised, though, as Kampot is another place that feels pleasantly stuck in time. It is the type of place to prominently feature a massive 2019 New Year’s archway in the middle of the town square, enticing you to step into 2019…in February 2020. (That’s New Year’s 2019, meaning it was from December 2018! Given how 2020 has panned out so far, though, maybe they were onto something with staying in the past!) It is also the type of place to have as its key landmark a famed Durian roundabout (which sits next to the 2019 archway), a massive statue in the middle of a traffic circle to celebrate and pay homage to the extremely stinky Southeast Asian fruit. Thankfully, there were no real durian vendors around, or Michael would have refused to visit.

Like Battambang, Kampot has a mix of aging French colonial buildings and dilapidated Chinese shophouses (along with an aging clientele of creepy, older, single European men clearly lingering around to partake in Cambodia’s sex industry). And also like Battambang, there isn’t a whole lot to do. We mostly just strolled around town in search of good food, finding cheap local eats at the night market and at a nondescript noodle shop behind the 2019 sign, enjoying the plethora of available Western delights such as bagels and vegan pasta, and sipping sunset drinks overlooking the Preaek Tuek Chhu river.

All that took place in a single afternoon.

As we had allotted three days in Kampot, which is about two and half more days than needed to see Kampot proper, most of our time was spent on excursions outside of town. One day, we visited La Plantation, a French-run organic pepper plantation with a beautiful visitor facility overlooking the farm. Kampot peppercorn is considered by many to be the best in the world. In fact, it’s the only farming region outside of France to be certified with a geographical indication (which is sort of a trademark protection for French agricultural products, especially wine, regulating the use of famous regional names such as “Champagne”)—that’s how exclusive Kampot pepper is. The pepper was widely used in France until the 1970s, when the industry was devastated during the Khmer Rouge period. Today, La Plantation is a social enterprise that trains and employs local villagers and is trying to bring Kampot peppercorn back.

We took a farm tour to learn more about the cultivation of pepper and how they are restarting the industry. Unfortunately, it was a bit difficult to understand at times, as most of the guides spoke Khmer or French—English wasn’t their strong suit, nor their main clientele—but we were able to pick up a few pointers. Pepper grows vertically, almost like a vine (or tomato or cucumber plants), and all product derivatives—green, red, black, and white peppercorn varieties—come from the same seeds. The differences in color and variety stem from the time of harvest and how they are processed—green peppercorn comes from fresh, unripe fruit; red is boiled and ripe; black is dried and unripe; and white is dried and ripe. Then, similar to California wine tasting, we went pepper tasting, which provides a different sort of buzz. We sampled 16 different varieties of peppercorn, and then, sticking to the wine tasting trends, we made up extravagant details about which flavors we thought we tasted (pepper, anyone?). “We particularly like the fresh green pepper, which is not dried so it needs to be used within a few days of harvest. We also love the red pepper, which features delicate notes of citrus, berries, and aromatic cloves that pair perfectly with seafood, poultry, meat, or any food, really.” (This red pepper is not to be confused with crushed red pepper, which is made from chilis, not peppercorn.) To complete our peppercorn fix, we ate pepper-infused vanilla ice cream, which was actually quite spicy and delicious.

Our second day trip was out to the coastal beach village of Kep. Located about 20 kilometers away from Kampot by land, one can get to Kep by car in just half an hour, or by sea through the Gulf of Thailand in only four times as long. We obviously chose the sea route, since this is Cambodia and everything takes a while anyway. Specifically, our mode of transportation was the Crab Shuttle, which is basically a small, ~12-foot long local fishing boat repurposed to fit around ten people, with a toilet appended to the stern hanging over the sea, piloted by an extremely nice, chain-smoking captain who spoke just five words of English and steered the boat with his feet. We crawled up on the roof of the boat to enjoy the scenic ride across blue-green waters filled with massive jellyfish. Arriving in Kep at midday, we immediately went to the beach. Frequented mostly by locals (who ran into the ocean fully clothed), this thin strip of Kep Beach was decidedly mediocre, and the water was so warm that it was barely refreshing. We left before long and walked along the coastal road to our main destination, the crab market.

The Kep crab market is a true farm-to-table operation, and makes the entire visit to Kep worthwhile. Endless rows of fresh fish, calamari, octopus, squid, and prawns line the food stalls, shaded under large brightly-colored umbrellas and ready to be grilled and served fresh. The main attraction, of course, is crab. Crab vendors occupy the entire perimeter of the market along the sea. We watched as the crabbers dragged their bamboo cages out of the water, crawling with fresh blue crab (at least we think they were blue crabs). We selected the actual crabs we wanted to eat right out of the trap, and then watched as they grilled them up right in front of us. After some seasoning with fresh green Kampot pepper, naturally, they were ready to eat about twenty minutes after extraction from the sea. We dove into a kilo of crabs (which is a lot of crab), along with some prawns on the side, and spent the better part of the next hour cracking crab shells with our hands and teeth. It was delightful and delicious.

After what basically amounted to a two-hour boat trip to eat lunch (albeit an amazing lunch), we returned to the dock to catch the Crab Shuttle for the two-hour return journey back to Kampot. As the captain charted the course with his feet, we sat on the deck and drank beers, while Karen serenaded us with her first (and, so far, last) ukulele chords. We relaxed on the sea as sunset approached, signaling local fisherman to start making their way out to sea for that night’s catch. Their boats were tied together three-, five-, even eight-wide, floating out as one single mass, allowing just one man to steer the entire fleet. In that moment, watching the remaining Cambodian fishermen play cards on the decks together, we were reminded, too, of the men’s camaraderie evident in the Battambang artists. Both Battambang and Kampot exude this gentler, more easygoing side of Cambodia—softer than the hardness of its history, marching to the tune of a different fiddle, probably stuck sometime in 2019.

Karen & Michael

Battambang and Kampot, Cambodia, February 10-14, 2020