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The fast and
the furious in
Cambodia
Inspired by repair cars used in
the 1960s for fixing the railway, the
bamboo train or
norry
(
from the French
word for lorry) first made its appearance
in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge
regime, when Cambodians struggled
to rebuild their lives. They were widely
used to transport people, produce and
livestock between villages. The first
versions were powered manually, but
later adaptations made them speedier
with repurposed water pumps or
boat engines. During its heyday in
the 1980s, over a thousand of these
vehicles operated along 600km of
railway across the country.
Due to road infrastructure being
gradually restored across Cambodia,
there are only a few hundred still
functioning today, with the most
popular route operating for tourists
between the villages of O Dambang
and O Sralau, south of Battambang.
As norries traveling both ways share
a single track, we occasionally had to
stop to dismantle ours and give way to
another heading the opposite direction.
Curious cuisine
Our stop in O Sralau turned out to be a
gastronomic adventure. A young boy
wearing a straw hat approached me,
carrying what we first thought was
cooked fowl of some kind. “Wanna
try, suh?” he offered. Upon closer
inspection, the peddled meat had
obvious incisors. It was grilled rat, fresh
from the farm fields, and peddled in a
basket by a quiet woman on a bicycle.
After having whet our appetites with
C A M B O D I A ’ S C O U N T R Y C H A R M
Cambodia’s bamboo
trains can go as
fast as 50km per
hour — that’s just
10
km per hour
below the minimum
speed required
in Metro Manila’s
expressways. Inset:
roasted rodents,
anyone?
During its heyday in the 1980s, over a thousand
of these bamboo trains operated along 600km
of railway across the country
