Seeing more of Cambodia - day 2

Travelling solo is a fantastic challenge, causing anxiety, self doubt ( e.g. what on earth am I doing here?) and near despair at times, but ultimately so fulfilling, you always find something to do, someone truly interesting to talk to or just something absorbing or so interesting that you can become truly self-sufficient, for a time.

Anyway next day, we four musketeers set off to 'visit the countryside' with Mr TinTin and what a day of contrasts and history it was. We started with a visit to a traditional Khmer house, a hardwood house, built on stilts in 1927 by the grandfather of the gracious present owner who spoke beautiful French and retained the house and lived in it as it was when built. You can see the untouched traditional kitchen.

This house is a rare survivor of French colonial times, it has endured bombings, invasion, civil war and the depredations of Pol Pot and still stands strong. It is a reminder too of the precious hardwood forests that were once a source of real wealth for Cambodia but have been ravaged and plundered by successive foreign powers and now hardly survive.

We continued our tour and saw some encouraging signs of renewal and development visiting the only vineyard in South East Asia. Battambang has an ideal climate for grapes and there are plans to expand 

the cultivation of grapes. We saw too the wonderful remains of the ancient past, the temples here pre-date Angkor Wat and continue to be very active places of worship with crowds of local devotees as well as the tourists. I was particularly taken by this family scene, reminding me of our Gospel account of the Presentation in the Temple.

Sadly, another area of this temple disclosed a tragic and ghastly dimension of Cambodian history. The Killing Caves were deep below, where the skeletal remains of  some of PolPot's victims were honoured in a glass case alongside a massive golden sleeping Buddha as a reminder of the savagery and inhumanity of the times where people and children were randomly clubbed and thrown to their deaths below, it was a chilling sight.

We completed this day of contrasts by witnessing the most remarkable and unimaginable wildlife scene. Each night the bats of Battambang leave their cave high up on a cliff at sunset to feed in their millions and streak in a ribbon across the sky for miles and miles, we watched them for over half an hour and still they came. Unfortunately capturing this miracle of nature was beyond my powered but there is a terrific YouTube video for you to see.