Battambang

You can overdose on tourists in Siem Reap, so I decided to stop over at a town which was a little off the tourist trail called 'Battambang' - pronounced by the locals as 'Battambong'...

I was planning to only stop for 2 or 3 nights...

I caught a local bus which had only 4 tourists - myself, a girl called Rowan from Essex (who was also travelling on her own) and a Canadian couple. Rowan had been travelling for 2 months but was near the end of her trip...

I had had only 3 hours sleep the night before, so i fell asleep on the bus. When i woke at Battambang, she was looking at my head lolling about with amusement. Fortunately, i hadn't dribbled this time...

We were keen to get the same hotel and share the tours, to save money. We tried to engage with the Canadian couple to see if they wanted to join us, but though the girl was friendly, the guy seemed to have had a severe personality bypass & neither of us could really engage him. Rowan said she had been surprised by the number of couples travelling & that some couples just wanted to stick to themselves..i found this too..

We were mobbed by touts at the bus station. It really was low season here and all the tuk drivers were competing for our business. Fortunately, Rowan had done her homework on the bus, (while i had been comatose) and selected a good guest house we could try...

So we checked in to the 'Royal Guest House' which for the price, i can recommend - her room was 7 USD, mine was 10 USD - both had fans and hot water and mine had a balcony view..


That evening we went for a wander down by the river and round the town. There's not a huge amount to see and we settled at a bar where we had a few beers and played some pool..

This was the 'Maddison Cafe' and one of the best bar/restaurants in town. The owner was a really nice French guy called Patrice and was celebrating his birthday so gave us 2 beers for free...



Battambang is really not a party town and all there are only a handful of bars and restos in town which all close at 11pm. The streets then become eerily deserted..completely different to Siem reap...The restos and bars are also quite pricey here... a beer was 70p (as opposed to 30p in Siem Reap) and steak and french fries were 4 GBP...