Battambang Caves 4 - Kampong Poi area 2008

Kampong Poi (Puoy) is reached by taking the only junction when driving from Sampeu towards Sdao, on the road to the border town of Pailin. The area is famous for its large manmade lake.

The villagers grow rice and peanuts. Rice drying -

We went to one small cave where a monk exhausted his English saying "how do you do".

short and tall

 The cave had interesting bedding -

We had a look at a nearby quarry -

We then asked the locals for caves

Then a load of kids took us up a steep hill to 2 tiny caves, one of which was packed full of bats so we didn't enter. There was an awful stench of almost pure ammonia.

  lingga bases -

 everyone out -

 the bat cave

free tailed bat

 going down -

 Looking back at the cliff - it looks a long way

There are 6 more albums on the Battambang caves and 1 on cave fauna
Caves 1 phnom sampeu and Caves 2 Sdao area and Caves 3 crocodile hill area, and Caves 5 phnom kdaong and Caves 6 Banan area and Caves 7 kpg poi lake area and also Cambodia cave fauna.
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© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

Battambang Caves 3 - Crocodile Hill, Phnom Krapoeu 2008

Phnom Krapoeu seen from Sampeu

Another area we looked at was to the north of the main road from Battambang to Pailin, at the hills opposite Phnom Sampeu.

The biggest hill is Phnom Krapoeu, Crocodile Mountain, where the Khmer Rouge hung out, and threw shells at the government troops on Phnom Sampeu. Much of this area still hadn't been de-mined on my 2004 visit. A smaller hill is Chicken Hill.
Phnom Krapoeu -

Wat Kantoy

 street scene outside the wat

 View to Sampeu -

 Procession of monks with begging bowls

Wat Truang Muang -

 black statue

 and his protector

 Entrance ladder into the cave and at the bottom was this striped kukri snake

In the wat -

 6 m deep covered shaft

Chicken hill ?

 Sampeu

On the very last caving day, we went back to the Vipassana Centre which we had tried to get to earlier, and were shown one 37m long cave which had been artificially opened, probably for the calcite crystals. Vipassana Centre  -

Calcite cave -

There are 6 more albums on the Battambang caves and 1 on cave fauna -
Caves 1 phnom sampeu and Caves 2 sdao area and Caves 4 kampong poi area and Caves 5 phnom kdaong and Caves 6 Banan area and Caves 7 kpg poi lake area and also Cambodia cave fauna.
--------------
© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission