Battambang: Birthday Bash by the River

Happy birthday to me! We leave Phnom Penh early (boo!) on a bus bound for Battambang, and it’s a fairly painless journey, which is a nice bonus; and even on a proper bus. We pull up in Battambang (pronounced ‘Badambong’) at around 4pm, where we check into a slightly plusher than usual hotel (a birthday treat, the day was working out well!). We had time to change before heading straight back out for a birthday meal!

My first choice for pre-dinner drinks was out as we couldn’t find it (Café Eden: we’d realise over the next few days that it’s closed on Tuesday’s – doh!) but we found a nice place for drinks and dinner further down the river, the River Café. We thought this was the place we were trying to reach (the Riverside Balcony Bar – you can see how we were confused! – which is famous for excellent burgers, apparently) but that was further down the river, so although the River Café did an OK burger, it wasn’t quite what we’d had in mind! Still, they served a good red wine, and the ice cream was pretty tasty, so it was a lovely meal all the same. And there was even entertainment of the singing variety – a trio of young girls backed by a lone guitarist, singing a random selection of songs by everyone from REM (Losing my Religion) to Beyoncé (Crazy in Love). So it was a kind of open air riverside disco (with glitter ball suspended from the stage the girls were standing on). Kitsch!

On the way back, we headed to the Gecko Café for a last drink – it’s a first floor bar with a view out over an intersection, and is pretty chilled out (and surprisingly busy compared to the rest of the town, which seems to shut down after dark).

The next day was a work day, but as I had a call to Australia at 10am, I kept going and worked through the UK night, freeing up our evening to go for dinner at Fresh Eats, a restaurant run by an NGO that helps families affected by HIV. We had a yummy curry and then headed back to watch a film before bed.

The next day we headed out of town on a motorbike to explore the temples out of town, as that’s where most of the Battambang action is. Our first stop was Phnom Sampeau, 12km south-west of Battambang, which involved a tough climb in the blistering heat to reach the temple at the top of a hill. The motorbike might have managed it up there (though the guy at the ticket office wasn’t convinced) – but I wouldn’t have fancied going back downhill on the bike, as it was pretty steep! Saying that, there were a bunch of kids no more than 12 riding motorbikes downhill (that can’t be legal, right?!) so maybe it would have been easier than it looked… Anyway, the view was worth the trek, and it was very peaceful, plus we met some local monks who told us a bit about the site’s history, and their English language programme teaching local kids to read and speak English, which was all very interesting. 

Halfway down the hill, there is a turn-off leading to the Killing Caves of Phnom Sampeau, where Khmer Rouge soldiers bludgeoned many people to death before throwing their bodies into the cave through a skylight near the top.

There are steps leading down into the cave, where a memorial has been placed containing some of the bones of the victims, and there is also a reclining Buddha lying peacefully in the leaf-dappled shade. 

There is one monk present, and if you make a donation toward the preservation of the memorial he ties a red string around your wrist to thank and bless you, which was quite moving in such a sad environment. The cave feels haunted with sadness but also very tranquil, and the steps are said to be enchanted – that could well be believed under the circumstances.

We trekked back down the hill to board the bike again, this time heading to Phnom Banam. It was a bumpy ride most of the way – sometimes the road descended into a dirt track, only to recover itself for a while again… before reducing back to dust; it’s as if the worst holes were repaired with sealed tarmac and the rest was left for another day! 

Bumpy Roads!

We passed through a village where we picked up some water from a really sweet family, who let us play with their dogs and whose kids waved us off when we left, as if we were family! We thought their cool box might have been used to store more than water bottles though, as they smelt a bit dubious – like they’d been sat in a fish soup! Still, the water seemed uncontaminated enough to drink…

 

Phnom Banam involved another hike uphill, but this time up exactly 358 steps instead of a steep-sloped road. Again, there was an excellent view from the top, but the interesting bit was the preliminary view of an early Angkor-style temple, with the signature five tower structure. Locals claim it was the model for Angkor Wat – either way, it is a well-preserved example of Angkor design.

358 steps!

Phnom Banam

Spirit House

The other temple of note in the area was 11km north of Battambang, and we were a good 25km south of the town at this point, so we decided to skip the last temple and instead dropped in on a Vineyard on the way back. On the way, we saw thousands of red chillies lying on tarpaulins outside houses, drying in the sun - this area is famous for its red chillies and they are clearly doing great business! We tried to buy some but unfortunately the language barrier intervened - as far as we could make out we could only buy in bulk, rather than a small handful, so we gave up and kept going to the Vineyard. They didn’t offer much choice of wine, but for a couple of dollars you can sample all four of their main products – a red wine, a brandy, a grape juice and a ginger, honey and lemon juice. The red wine was pretty awful (equivalent to a cheap £3 bottle back home! – I guess Cambodia isn’t noted for its wine) but the brandy tasted fairly moreish, although it did make you pull a face as you drank it. The grape juice was OK, a little bland but drinkable, but the real winner was the ginger, honey and lemon juice – it tasted like liquid health! I ordered a bottle of it while Bradley ordered a brandy, and we enjoyed these as the sun began to set. It was quite relaxing as there were some other bikers who’d dropped in at the same time as us, so it was good to compare travel tales and share destination tips for a bit. 

Of course, you can’t get too comfortable at a Vineyard when you’ve still got to get back to town on a motorbike, so we left it at that and zoomed back before the sun had fully set. We polished off the rest of the ginger, honey and lemon juice and went to Fresh Eats again for another fantastic red curry, and a couple of beers to end a good day.

We had one last day in Battambang, so we decided to do a walking tour of the town that was recommended by the guidebook. This mostly involved admiring the town architecture – particularly along the riverside, where there are some amazing French colonial buildings – and also a few temples too. 

We stopped at Wat Phiphetaram near our hotel first, where we decided not to linger as someone was pestering us to do a tour! 

Wat Phiphetaram

Wat Phiphetaram

Wat Phiphetaram

After the riverfront we went to Wat Damrey Sar, where we saw some incredible if gruesome statues out the back (and met some local kids who seemed to be after our money, but were quite content with the bottle of water we gave them instead!). 

ewwwww!

Wat Damrey Sar

Wat Damrey Sar

Wat Damrey Sar

We also stopped at Wat Kampheng, which had some stunning gardens with some more delicate statues decorating the place.

Wat Kampheng

Wat Kampheng

The last stop of the tour was a trip across the New Iron Bridge (built by the French, with a French roadmark next to it, minus translation) and which is only passable on foot or by motorbike (cars need to go the long way round). 

Across the bridge, there was one last temple for the day, Wat Kandal, which had an amazingly grand entrance and seemed to be very popular with the locals. 

Wat Kandal

Wat Kandal

Wat Kandal

We decided to sit by the river in the afternoon light for a while, with a corn on the cob we’d picked up outside the temple (these were so delicious, and seemed to be everywhere in Cambodia!). After we’d had a breather, we walked back across the river and retraced our footsteps along the riverfront. I was determined to find Café Eden this time as I was mystified as to why we couldn’t find it before, and amazingly it appeared before us as we reached the northernmost part of the riverbank. It turns out that it closes on Tuesday’s, and the sign would therefore have been hidden by the shutters on my birthday so we wouldn’t have known where it was anyway – we hadn’t just missed it. We settled there to enjoy the caramel hot chocolate George recommended to me (thanks honey! It was amazing!) and, as there was a happy hour on, we decided to order some good red wine (really tasty after the Vineyard!) and some nibbles, all of which tasted divine. They made us feel fuller than expected, so we skipped dinner, and headed back to Skype home before packing our bags up again and preparing for the boat ride to Siem Reap the next morning.

This boat trip is quite infamous in Cambodia for taking any length of time from five hours to nine hours (times can be affected by the water level of the river, so are seasonal). The journey is quite an epic adventure no matter how long it takes; you travel through mostly wide waterways, passing fishing villages with kids as young as six out on boats tending the nets, and the banks are full or children waving at the boats passing by, making it quite an interactive experience!

There are also sections of the river that pass through marshland, where only a narrow channel is passable – which is fine until there is two-way traffic! 























 

At one point, we passed so close to another boat that we ripped one of their tires off the side (used to protect the sides of the boat in situations just like this) but one of the guys on our boat managed to grab it and throw it back to them. Teamwork! 

These narrow channels can be quite hair-raising as the reeds along either side are knocked about as you pass through, and they whip in through the sides – you need to watch your eyes and often step into the aisle to avoid being whacked by reeds and branches. It does seem to disturb the insects a lot too – at one point, there were insects crawling all over the seats and any bags left lying on seats near the edge of the boat, and you have to pull insects and leaves off your belongings before you can sit back down again. I was a bit worried that the boat was unnecessarily disruptive, but at least it all happens through the same channel rather than across a network of routes through the marsh.

Here are some of the kids we saw fishing who wanted to say hello...

After six hours of meandering along the river, we finally reached Siem Reap, and picked up a tuk-tuk into town within seconds of disembarking (thankfully, our hostel had sent a tuk-tuk for us, as it was a real scrum at the boat terminal!). Soon we were rattling along the bumpy road into town, and looking forward to three days of being overwhelmed by the Temples of Angkor.

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