Phnom Sampeou
ByOn advice from the villagers living around Battambang we travelled to the mountain of Phnom Banan to see the ancient Angkorian temple on the summit. Our approach along a dusty red latterite road opened up to a spectacular view of the vegetation clad mountain with clearly visible stone monuments crowning the summit. The climb up a huge staircase ascending the side of a mountain was relieved by a small boy keeping Margaret cool with a hand fan. On the way we stopped at Wat Bai Dom Ram to see the flying foxes. We recognised these one metre wing span bats as the fruit bats we knew and loved from the Gambia. From Phnom Banan our journey took us to the gleaming golden spires of the pagodas on Phnom Sampeou, or Boat Mountain. These Wats perched high on the cliff top of this imposing mountain shone against the deep blue sky. Spreading out before us as we looked down from summit the flooded plains below gleamed and sparkled in the afternoon sun. It was horrific that this sacred mountain had been desecrated by Khmer Rouge atrocities only thirty five years earlier. To this day glass fronted memorial tombs contained the skulls and bones of the victims who were dropped through holes in the mountain to die in the cavernous caves below.
As evening gathered we stared in wonder at a huge image of the Buddha being hewn from the solid rock at Phnom Sampeou. When this ten year project is completed it will be a magnificent sight. As we waited for dusk the locals went about their tasks of washing the kids and preparing their evening meals over smoking fires. Then quite suddenly streams of bats issued from the caves. They stayed in tight formation like gigantic coils of rope twisting, looping and extending over the countryside, like smoke from a ships funnel. Of course only we were enthralled and excited by the sight. To the villagers this was a completely natural and routine nightly event.
