When you are traveling in Cambodia many will for sure ask you about your plans to ride the Bamboo Train! A train without a particular destination…..just a bumpy ride up and down a 12km track passing beautiful and lush green Cambodian sceneries. One of the funniest things to do in the area of Battambang? Or just a show for tourists?
This train (although it is nothing more than a bamboo platform on two steel axles with wheels) is a surviving part of the former Cambodian railway network. No trains are running in Cambodia anymore and most tracks are left to be overgrown with weeds.
In the rural city of Battambang , they are still using a short track of around 12kms. They indeed use it mainly for tourists although some locals also ride the track.
The trains are actually just flat bamboo beds. It feels like a flying carpet on wheels, although it is not as silent as a flying carpet. How fast? Well, around 30km/h.
This close to the ground you will for sure feel every bump in the track (and there are many!), but nothing to worry about. Every train has a driver sitting at the back, making sure the engine keeps on running.
Sadly, the Bamboo Trains will soon stop to exist. In February 2008 a project was announced to rebuild the railway lines from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh to Poipet and on to Sisophon and the Thai border (a stretch completely destroyed by the Khmer Rouge regime). This was due to be completed at the end of 2009. As of May 2011 this project has only completed from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville.
As of May 2011 the bamboo train appears to be the only train operating around the Battambang area, which can be observed by the completely overgrown tracks passing though the city. On the outskirts a tourist service operates for $5 per person to a village that has a brick factory. This is overseen by the local Tourist Police. Surely, the railway will be upgrade to Phnom Penh again….but until then, go and ride the Bamboo Train!