We left the tourist lights of Siem Reap for Battambang, Cambodia's second largest city and the heart of the its rice producing region. It's also home to some of the best preserved French Colonial architecture in Cambodia. We arrived in the early afternoon on the weekend and were a little apprehensive - it seemed like nothing was going on in town and our decision to spend some time here might be a little misguided. We had faith in our friend Robina though. She had already set us up with a driver to tour the area, so we relaxed and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere on our first evening.
We were picked up early in the morning by Chin Chin, our guide for the day, on his motor rickshaw. Cambodian tuktuks differ from the others we had used in that they are simply a rickshaw carraige attached to the back of a motorbike - still incredibly comfortable. Chin Chin had a packed itinerary planned for us. After a quick breakfast at the best juice bar in town, we took a tour around the city and were happy to see more life in the town than our first day.
Chin Chin brought us to see the "working" side of Battambang. We stopped at a roadside shack where the family makes bamboo sticky rice which is sold as a snack to the locals. Esentially sticky rice is stuffed inside some bamboo and roasted over a fire. We tried it and were hooked - delicious! We got a sneak peak at some rice stills, possibly illegal, and visited the fish market (nothing like Hamburg's) where the day's catch is gutted and cured.
After lunch we headed out to the countryside to visit some local temples and monuments to the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. We also stopped at the Killing Caves which were used by the Khmer Rouge and visited some ruins from the same time period as Angkor Wat.
Our last stop on the day was at the Bat Cave. We'll explain more about that and the Bamboo Train in some of the next posts!
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