Another Cambodian Town - Battambang

Since I liked Siem Reap so much, it set the standard pretty high for Cambodia.  Though maybe Battambang, our subsequent destination, wasn’t as cute, it also wasn’t nearly as touristy, and I really enjoyed the chance to see a more typical Cambodian town.

Though Battambang is accessible by public bus, we chose to get there by boat: 9.5 hours across the Tonlé Sap Lake and down the Sangkae River.  Expecting the boat to be a tourist trap, we were surprised to find that it was basically a motorized canoe with a roof, and to realize it was actually a form of local transportation for Cambodians.  In fact, we dubbed it a “floating matutu,” as it stopped quite frequently to let people on and off.  On the boat, we passed through a number of “floating” villages, where many people live on small houseboats or in shacks right on the river’s edge.  About halfway through the trip, we made a pit stop in one of the villages.  The small shop/restaurant we stopped at had one of the most rustic, and least hygienic, toilets I’ve ever used – a building on stilts with a hole in the floor opening straight over the river.  A few hours after the stop, we finally pulled up to the pier in Battambang.

Our hotel there, Hotel Chhaya, was remarkable in that it was $1.50/bed.  That’s right, $1.50.  The three of us shared a four-person dorm with a British guy, and the shared bathroom was just across the hall.  The bathroom was not the cleanest, and the room was pretty hot, despite having a fan.  We also had a couple issues with the staff there giving us bad information about activities and things going on around town.  For $1.50, though, I really can’t complain.

While in Battambang, we had more delicious Cambodian meals, along with a couple of excellent Western things.  We discovered the adorable Gecko Café on our first night in town, and ended up eating there a couple times.  Mediterranean salad, “Cambodian” wantons filled with cream cheese, Oreo milkshakes – it was wonderful!  I also tried Chang beer, a Thai import, which, though some people find it a bit bland, I liked.

Battambang’s claim to fame is its bamboo train, which was originally, like the boat, a form of local transportation that became popular with travelers.  Unlike the boat, though, it’s no longer used by Cambodians and is now just a tourist attraction.  The train’s cars are comprised of two sets of wheels covered by a flat platform made from bamboo.  There’s only one train track, so when two trains going opposite directions meet each other, one train’s passengers get off while the conductors disassemble the train and then reassemble it on the track behind the other car.  Since the train cars are so simple, it only takes a couple minutes.  The train went much faster than expected and felt a little more like a roller coaster than an actual train.  It was fun, though, and the countryside we got to see from it was really pretty.

While in Battambang, we also took a Cambodian cooking class.  Like in the Balinese cooking class we took in Ubud, the food was delicious and, for the most part, not too terribly difficult to make.  We made chicken amok (coconut curry), beef lok lak, and pork spring rolls.  We got a cookbook with these and other recipes, so it looks like I’ll be making vegetarian versions of these dishes for a Balinese-Cambodian feast when I get home!