All aboard the Bamboo Train!

On Friday we rode the Bamboo Train in Battambang, which was brilliant. It was like a rollercoaster; I kept expecting it to dip any minute. The "train" is actually a bamboo platform on wheels, with a motor attached, and it hurtles through beautiful Cambodian countryside along the old railway tracks at frightening speeds; hold onto your hats, bags, and shoes! If you meet a train coming the other way, the train with the most people on has right of way, and the passengers on the lighter one have to get off, dismantle the train, let the other one pass, and then put it back together again.

This is our driver. When we stopped for a break at the "station" we bought him a beer, which probably wasn't the best idea, seeing as he had to drive us back, but we made it in one piece.

Afterwards we went on to Phnom Sampeau, or Sampeau Hill, where we saw some killing caves with a monument to the dead made of skulls, some artilliery left over from the civil war, and a big pagoda, and then we watched thousands of bats fly out of a cave at dusk. It was fantastic.