Pattaya (Thailand) One, 9/1/17:
‘Bamboo Train’ Cambodia’s homegrown is end of the line
Battambang, Cambodia – With a wooden platform jerry-rigged to a small engine, Cambodia’s one-of-a-kind “Bamboo Train” delights tourists as it clatters through bucolic countryside — but its days are numbered as the Southeast Asian nation plans a railways overhaul.
The bamboo-lined flat trollies are a testament to Cambodian creativity and enterprise in an impoverished nation with little infrastructure. They were first invented as part of a homegrown, unofficial transport system to make use of the country’s abandoned colonial-era train tracks but later morphed into a popular tourist attraction. But the hallowed site in northwestern Battambang province will soon be no more as a government project to refurbish the country’s dilapidated rail system inches closer.
That is especially worrying news for the community of drivers, ticket-takers and snack vendors who live off the proceeds from the unique attraction that has become a fixture on the tourist circuit. . . .
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