Cambodia's "bamboo horse" keeps the people on track

Horn Tith's motto is: anytime, anywhere.

Well, almost anywhere - as long as there are train tracks along which he can drive his small, home-made "norry" train, one of many that ply Cambodia's battered rail system.

With the regular rail service in shambles, Cambodians for decades have been driving these bamboo horses to carry goods and people the length of the country.

"We can't wait for the trains, there is not enough service," said the 20-year-old amateur conductor as he hurried to put his norry together at this isolated train station, a faded yellow blockhouse some 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the capital Phnom Penh.

Two axles stripped from derelict military vehicles were laid on the tracks, and a bamboo platform set on top of them. A small gasoline engine was wedged into a hole cut out of the platform and tied to one of the axles with a rubber strap. The entire assembly took only a couple of minutes and Horn Tith, who has been driving norries since he was 10 years old, called his half dozen passengers aboard.

"Even when people get sick, we can transport them anytime, even in the middle of the night - quick, on-time service," he said. Cambodia's rail system runs from the southwestern seaport of Sihanoukville to the capital, finally terminating hundreds of kilometres (miles) away on the northern border with Thailand.

But decades of war and neglect left vast stretches of track damaged, making train travel a slow and uncomfortable experience. What few trains remain only make the trips north or south from the capital once a week.

The roads in many parts of the country were no better, with rural thoroughfares often little more than crumbling tracks or muddy paths gouged through the rice fields. Looking for an easier, more reliable form of mass transport, Cambodians began building norries in the 1980s.

Horn Tith admits that accidents were common in the chaos of those early years, but this unofficial form of public transport has evolved its own set of rules.

"There is only one track - so if two norries meet, the one with the lighter load has to be taken off the rails so the other can pass," he said.

"If they are carrying the same weight load, the one that is nearer to the train station must return," he added. Long Sokhon arrived in Tbeng Khpos hot and tired. The 50-year-old was travelling south with her daughter and husband to see family and thought it only natural that she take the norry.

"I wanted to have fun and see the view," she said.

More importantly, it kept her family off Cambodia's notoriously dangerous highways, which are the scene of daily carnage as drivers in vehicles big and small hurtle along the asphalt with little regard for their own mortality.

"Taking the norry is much safer (because) you are driving on one-way road," she said.

Also making the norry attractive for impoverished rural Cambodians is the fact that a single fare can cost as little as a few US cents, Horn Tith added.

"Villagers like to ride norries," he said. But the government has been trying its best to stop the practice. The government two years ago banned norries, saying that they were driving down train ridership, officials said.

"We have never officially allowed norries to operate on the railroads ... it is illegal," said Uk Chan, a secretary of state at the transport ministry who oversees Cambodia's railways.

Acknowledging that "our railroads have been poor since the war," Uk Chan said 73 million dollars has been earmarked to restore the rail system and to make rail travel faster.

"People will use the trains again," he said, adding however that the rehabilitation, which starts in 2008, could take three years.

"Now we cannot ban norries from running because the villagers need the transportation, so we just close our eyes and let them go," he said.

AFP