All aboard for final 'norry' experience

Cambodia's bamboo express reaches the end of the line

This article is quoted from Phnom Penh Post newspaper and written by Roth Meas

Battambang has long been famous among tourists for its bamboo trains, simple contraptions consisting of a wood and bamboo platform attached to a set of metal wheels and propelled along local railroad tracks using converted boat engines.

The ingenious machines, called “norries” by locals, are also an important means of transport for Cambodians, and they are used to carry both goods and passengers over short distances.

However, the era of the bamboo train will soon come to a close as the result of agreements signed last year by the Cambodian government with the Australian logistics company Toll Holdings Ltd, and with the private Cambodian company Royal Group.

The companies have been tasked with repairing the country’s entire network of dilapidated railway tracks over the next few years and running them for the next three decades.

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport says that once the repair projects are finished the bamboo trains will no longer be permitted to operate. According to Vasim Soriya, the director of planning at the ministry, this is expected to occur in early 2012.

Touch Chankosal, the ministry’s undersecretary of state, explained why, from the government’s point of view, the bamboo trains cannot be allowed to survive in this brave new world of long-distance train service: “After we complete the repairs of all the tracks and long-distance trains start running again, the norries will not be able to operate because the trains will run many times a day and they will be fast. If a norry is on the tracks when a real train comes along, it will create a dangerous situation.”

This is bad news for the men living near the railway station in Odambang commune, Battambang province, who make their living giving rides to locals and tourists on bamboo trains.

(Foreign tourists prepare for the unique experience of riding Battambang's famous bamboo trains earlier this month. Photo by Roth Meas)

Bon Boch, 62, remembers when the bamboo trains were introduced in the early 1970s by railroad officials who were repairing broken sections of track.

Nun Nan drives his train along the rickety tracks near Odambang railway station in Battambang province. His job as a driver is endangered by railway repairs slated to be finished by early 2012.

“At that time the only people who used norries were railroad mechanics who used them to go around and take care of the tracks,” he said. “There weren’t many norries then, and they didn’t have motors – the mechanics used long bamboo sticks to push them along, like they were rowing a boat.”

Bon Boch was relocated to Siem Reap province during the Khmer Rouge era, but when he returned to Battambang in 1980 he saw that the bamboo trains were being used to transport Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers to the battlefield.

“They weren’t just owned by train officials anymore. People in Odambang commune were making their own norries using wheels scavenged from tanks destroyed during the war against the Khmer Rouge,” he said.

“They were easy to make, and they were a convenient way to get around because there weren’t many roads in the area back then.”

Since that time boat motors have supplanted bamboo poles as the means of propulsion, but most still use old tank wheels. The wood and bamboo platforms are about two metres wide and three metres long. Bon Boch said his son bought a new one two years ago for about US$500.

Another driver, 38-year-old Nun Nan, said his train can carry up to 15 Cambodians or about 1.5 tonnes of rice. But he said never carries more than eight foreign tourists at a time for safety reasons.

“When we drive, we have to be careful about animals crossing the railway. When my norry is moving fast, it takes at least four or five metres to come to a complete stop when I brake,” he said, adding that despite this he has never had an accident.

He said he carries foreign tourists about twice a day, taking turns with other norry drivers. The rides cost US$10 per person, and less when there is more than one passenger.

“For me there isn’t anything special for tourists to see, just rice fields and bushes along the railway,” Nun Nan said. “I guess they just want to experience travelling on a norry rather than seeing the landscape.”

Because many drivers share the same railway, the norries must be light enough to lift off the track when two trains meet while travelling in the opposite direction. Etiquette dictates that the norry carrying the lighter load is removed from the tracks so the other can pass.

Cambodia has two state railway lines, including a 386-kilometre stretch from Phnom Penh to the Thai border that was completed in 1942 by the French colonial government. The other line, finished in 1969, runs from the capital to Sihanoukville.

A police officer at Odambang railway station, Nou Seng, said the civil war ruined the railways. After the fighting ended, trains could run from Phnom Penh to Battambang only one time a day and at an average speed of only 10 kilometres per hour.

“The Khmer Rouge blew up the railway almost every day to cut off transportation,” he said.

“They put mines under the tracks in many places from Battambang to Kampong Chhnang province. Many steel rails were damaged by the bombs,” he said.

Nou Seng said that despite the problems, trains used to run on the line until last year but have now stopped. Subsequently, bamboo trains now play an even more important role in transporting goods and people.

“But they don’t just serve local people,” he said. “About 30 foreign tourists a day come to the station to ride the bamboo trains.”

One visitor, 28-year-old Laurance Muller from France, hired a bamboo train earlier this month to ride from Odambang to Osralav railway station.

“I wanted to see how the bamboo trains work,” she said. “I’m a tourist so I’m okay with one ride, but I felt upset for the local people when I heard the bamboo trains are going to finish soon.”

A tourist from Australia, Tom Scollon, said he wanted to ride the bamboo train because it’s something that can’t be found in other countries.
“I want to see the bamboo train before everything changes and they don’t exist in Cambodia anymore,” he said.

“I think it’s a very special experience to see this and to ride on it. But I think when it closes it will be a shame for the families that use it, that operate it, and for the local people.”

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The below are the extra photos of bamboo trains:

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Feeding the hungry with food for the dead

Every Pchum Ben, a small group of Battambang people always spend their priceless time to ask rice cakes from buddhist pagodas offering the prisoners.

Here is the article about rice cake collecting program by Phnom Penh Post:

By Roth Meas, Thursday, 24 September 2009 15:00
THE morning sunshine splays over Pok Chhma primary school in Battambang, giving the orange robes of the monks who work there an especially vivid sheen. The festival of Pchum Ben has only just finished, but there will be no rest for these holy men.

The monks, along with many other volunteers, tend giant grills set up to dry thousands of rice cakes left over from the festival of the dead. These savoury treats will ultimately be distributed to prisons all over Battambang, where they will feed famished inmates.

Battambang’s Dhammayietra centre runs the initiative, which is the brainchild of one of its workers, 30-year-old Sek Sarom. She conceived the idea in 2000, while working as a volunteer language tutor in Battambang’s prisons.

“We taught languages to the prisoners, and in that time I observed that people did not have enough food in the prison. I know that after every Bonn Pchum Ben, there is a great deal of waste in terms of food at the pagodas, so we decided to begin collecting rice cakes for prisoners,” she said.

Sek Sarom felt there was not enough understanding from the wider community when it came to the inmates. This manifested itself in a great deal of hostility when she first floated the idea almost a decade ago – something for which she was not prepared.

A labour of empathy
“When I first sent letters to ask for rice cakes, even some monks complained and asked why we should help them. Prisoners are the bad guys; they attack, rape and even kill people, they said.

Some monks even cursed me before handing over the rice cakes,” she said.
Yet Sek Sarom was determined to get her idea off the ground, with much of her resolve emanating from an empathy she was able to build for the inmates while teaching them.

“I think prisoners are human beings, just like me. I noticed that most of the prisoners are from poor backgrounds, and many of them fell into crime because of poverty and a lack of education,” she said.

Racing against time

With all of the good will in the world, though, Sek Sarom admits she would not be able to carry out the initiative without the help of the monks and other volunteers. It is a huge operation, with bamboo for the grills supplied by local villagers and small groups of volunteers speeding to pagodas on motorcycle, in order to meet the relatively tight time frame between the end of Pchum Ben at around midday and a 2pm deadline when many of the temples close.

“Collecting the rice cakes allows many people to get involved. Not only monks, but also members of Dhammayietra, as well as the local community,” Sek Sarom explained.

“After I finish sending them to the prisons, I do have moments where I think I don’t want to do it next year because it’s so tiring. But I know I will because I feel so much empathy for the people we are helping.”

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Khet Battambang, the province of rice

This province is at the west of Cambodia, and it benefits to many kinds of plants because of rich fertilizers.

Rice is the main crop which exported into many markets in Cambodia. if you go to many markets in Phnom Penh, you will probably see notes indicating "rice from Battambang." Actually, the rice from this province tastes very good.

Besides rice, there're countless crop which can raise people from starvation. Corns and peanuts are grown everywhere in the province.

Another famous fruit is orange. It is grown mostly at Odam Bang and Banan.

Recently, grape is grown firstly in Cambodia's Battambang

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Battambang Province or Khet Battambang

Battambang actually means losing stick in Khmer, and this province has has its own story as mention below:

Once upon a time, Kampuchea (Cambodia) faces wars with neighboring countries. Many enemies invade the villages at the west of Kampuchea. One day, enemies kill many people, even women and children. There’s a pregnant woman whose belly is stabbed can escape from those enemies. When she delivers a birth, her son's legs become disable because of stabbing. Where he goes, he has to crawl because he can not use his feet as the usual person.

When he grows up, he hears there’s a holy man who has stick (Dambang Kronhoung). Many people call him Ta Dambang Kronhoung.

Ta Dambang Kronhoung one day visits a community at the west of Kampuchea where the disable man has lived since he was born. Many people come to appreciate him. The disable man also wants to see Ta Dambang Kronhoung, but his handicap does not offer him any convenience. However, he tries his best by moving one by one crossing the quiet forest to see the holy man, or he can lost chance to see him in his whole life.

While the disable is taking a rest, an angel pretends to be a normal person and brings a horse and clothe to the disable. He tells the disable man that he wants to keep house and clothes with the disable. The disable man hopes the property owner comes to get his horse and clothe back, so he decides to keep for him.

The sun almost sets, but the property owner does not come back to get his horse and clothe yet. The disable can not wait any more because he’s afraid he can not see the holy man. So he decides to take the clothes on and get on the horse. After the disable can get on his back, the magic horse forwards very fast to the crowd of the people.

As soon as the magic house sees the crowd, he flies over those people, even Ta Dambang Kronhoung. People change their attention to the disable who is on the horse and scream; "there’s another holy man!"

Ta Dambang Kronhoung is very angry while his popularity gets lost after the appearance of the disable. He picks up his Dambang Kronhoung and throws to the horse in order to shoot the disable down.

Ta Dambang Kronhoung's intention can not succeed because his Dambang Kronhoung can not hit the disable. Unfortunately, he loses his Dambang Kronhoung. He orders many people to find his Dambang Kronhoung, but nobody can find it. People have called the place where Ta Dambang Kronhoung loses his stick Battambang or Losing stick. Now it becomes a name of a western province of Kampuchea. Ta Dambang Kronhoung is later on created as as statue representing the man who names Battambang province.

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