The dusty red latterite road opened up to a spectacular view of the vegetation clad mountain with clearly visible stone monuments crowning the summit of Phnom Banan.

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.

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. This was the beginning of the rainy season.

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 villagers went about their tasks of washing the kids and preparing their evening meals over smoking fires. Then quite suddenly streams of small insect eating 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.

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.  There are many such memorials to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, notably the national memorial in Phnom Penh. 

Making the paper for spring rolls using rice batter. A typical house in one of the villages around Battambang. Note the stilts to keep the house out of the annual floods. Many small scale manufacturing like silk weaving and food production is done under the houses.

Grinding rice in a wet grinder to make rice flour paste. The upper grinding wheel is fixed whilst the lower grinding wheel is driven by a small petrol engine. Laying out circles of rice paper to dry in the sun.  The hot Cambodian sun is widely used for preserving food by rapid drying. Fish, meat, fruit and vegetables are often laid out in the sun. 

Rice paste is extruded into boiling water to cook rice noodles. Rice wine is fermented and then distilled to make a strong rice liquor. In both cases the rice husks are bought from a rice cleaning mill to use as the fuel.

Sticky rice is produced by mixing coconut milk, sugar and rice into a paste and then cooking it in a hollow bamboo tube. Margaret enjoys sticky rice.

Rice cleaning and grading mill. Note the open belt drives and the dusty atmosphere.