Buddha's ashes, Battambang homestay & bamboo train

After our beach break on the South coast of Cambodia we headed back on the Stray Bus with CoCo and headed to Battambang.

First stop was Udong where there is a pagoda made famous for holding the ashes of Buddha. Apparently Udong used to be a capital of Cambodia back in The 17th century. The capital was moved though as most of the Udong area is low lying and floods frequently. Recently the Cambodian government moved the Buddha relic (we were told his ashes - not sure that's a 100% correct but maybe it's part of his ashes) from Phnom Penh to Phnom Udong pagoda at the top of 509 steps.

View across the rice paddies

Pagoda flanked by Buddhist and Cambodian flags.

Monkeys guarding the temple

Babies!

Elephant decoration

Kids at the top of the temple - they try to get tips by fanning you on the way up - but they didn't do as good a job as the ladies in Myanmar!

Monks watching the kites from the vantage point at the top of Phnom Udong

After being sprinkled with the holy water we headed back down the mount and on to our next stop - Kompong Chhnang which is known for the floating markets and villages that exist on the river/ flood waters there.

We visited the floating markets but didn't have time to get a boat to properly see the floating village.

Boats bringing fresh produce in.

Lots of fish being sorted

Shortly after taking this photo I almost got hit in the face with fish that the sorting ladies were chucking into the relevant bucket - not sure how they were sorting them - these dont look like the same fish or similar sized!

Guess what the town is known for its fish!

Post our fishy visit we headed to a village outside of Battambang for our Cambodian homestay.

On arrival we immediately got dragged into making spring rolls filled with a taro root mixture:

Cat demonstrating!

Deep frying - yum!

Amok - the classic Cambodian dish of steamed fish in a coconut curry sauce - traditionally served in a banana leaf.

Beef with fried pineapple - another classic Cambodian dish we tried.

The food at the homestay was the best we've tried - we saved ourselves to stuff in as much as we could manage (not literally - we did appreciate it rather than just gorging - but it was sublime!)

We had a fairly restless nights sleep given that the family had a baby and there was a funeral kicking off at 4am and the building were open sided, so we were up early and ready to visit the local village school. We had an escort of kids from the homestay. Children in Cambodia get free schooling until middle school - but usually they only go in the morning or afternoon - not all day.

Some tasty snacks we saw on our walk through the village - yes that's dried coiled snake - didn't try it!

Health advice outside the temple opposite the school....

The local kids were so excited to see us!

These boys were trying to look studious... Maybe!

We handed out exercise books and pens to all the kids - schools don't have the money to provide these so families have to, so even our 1 book & 2 pens each helped.

All the kids not in class waving goodbye to us

Our next step on the way to Siem Reap where the Stray tour ended was the Bamboo train. This is an old bit of train track that the locals use to help them transport the rice harvest, using bamboo platforms  driven by the ubiquitous motor seen everywhere in Asia.

Since tourists discovered it the locals can make much more money outside of rice season by taking us 7km along and even letting us have a go driving, a tad scary given the complete lack of safety and also the only way to pass is to take your cart off the tracks to let people get through!

So obviously it was great fun!

Even in the rain - I almost hit a cow, but the driver braked for me....

We visited the local brick factory at the other end, where we saw the huge kilns they bake the bricks in - its a lot of manual labour involved and again the locals all wanted to sell you something to supplement their income - you can't fault them living below the poverty line with less than $1.50 a day average earnings...

In all the homestay and bamboo train were probably the best experiences we've had in Cambodia.