Battambang is a nice city about 4 hours away from Siem Reap by bus. The city is known for its French Colonial architecture and a wide variety of nearby tourist attractions. Initially, I wasn't very impressed with this city, but I ended up having a great time here.
The bus ride to Battambang from Siem Reap was unremarkable. I don't remember anything about the trip itself. When we arrived, the bus was swarmed by tuktuk drivers trying to attract customers. I had to push my way through them to get to the luggage compartment and get my backpack.
One of the drivers seemed friendly and not pushy. I got a good vibe from him and liked that he didn't push fliers for hotels in my face. He said that he would take me to a hotel for free. I asked how that would work and he explained that the hotel would pay him a commission for bringing a customer. He showed me a photo of the hotel and it looked good so I agreed.
On the way to the hotel, my driver said that if I liked the hotel, maybe I would hire him as a guide. I really liked that he seemed honest and was up-front about getting a commission from the hotel. The hotel was pretty nice and I got a room. I didn't want to go on a sight-seeing tour, but I did want to repay the driver so I agreed to have him show me around. He gave me a fair price up-front and didn't try to raise it later.
I dropped off my bag and went out with the guide who's name was John. The first stop was the bamboo railway. I had seen videos of this online and it was kind of cool ride it. When we came across another cart going in the opposite direction, we got off our cart and picked it up and took it off the track. Then the driver picked up the wheels and took them off the track too. The other cart of tourists continued on and we put our cart back on the track.
The ride goes to a little tourist area with shops and refreshments, then you get back on and go back. It was OK and pretty unique, but not something that I would consider very interesting.
After the bamboo railway, we went to a mountain with a temple and some caves. One of the caves is The Killing Cave where the communist government of Cambodia killed thousands of people. The cave is basically a giant hole in the ground of the mountain and the soldiers would push undesirables off of the cliff to kill them. People were killed for such crimes as wearing glasses or owning land.
On the mountain was a temple complex that was inhabited by monkeys.
The monkeys at the temple were better behaved than other monkeys that I'd seen. They mostly seemed to mind their own business. There was a mom with a baby that I kept trying to get photos of.
The view from the temple on the mountain was impressive. I was struck by how flat the land was. Wikipedia says that this is Cambodia's number one rice growing region and it makes sense. There's lots of land to grow it on.
Besides the Killing Cave, the mountain also has the Bat Cave. When the sun starts to go down, millions of bats fly out of this cave.
The bats fly out of the cave for about an hour. It's a non-stop flow of bats. The area by the mouth of the cave smells bad because of the bat pee. Before they started flying out, I wanted to go by the mouth of the cave, but John warned me that the bats pee and poop as they fly out. The other tourists stood by the opening and quickly ran off to safer areas once the bats started flying out.
I know that some people don't like bats, but I love them. I have such a deep seated hatred for mosquitos that I can't help but love animals that eat them. Besides being mosquito killers, I think they're kind of cute in youtube videos.
Driving back to town, I could see a cloud of bats still pouring out of the cave. It warmed my heart the think of all the mosquitos that they would kill.
While we were at the bat cave, I talked with John quite a bit. Somehow we got on a topic and he mentioned that birthdays weren't usually celebrated (or maybe not celebrated for daughters). He said that it was uncommon, but he was having a birthday party for his daughter because she is his only child. She would be turning 7 on the next day. He asked if I wanted to go to her birthday party.
Normally I would never want to go to a 7 year-old's birthday. My instinct was to say no because it sounded really lame and awkward. But part of traveling is learning to say yes. So I agreed to go to the party on the next day.
John dropped me off at my hotel and the next day I didn't do a whole lot. He said that he would be busy getting the party ready, so his cousin would pick me up. As the day went by and my mind had time to think about things, I began to suspect that this was all a set-up for a scam.
I spent a couple of hours searching "scams in Cambodia". I was really regretting agreeing to go to this party and I convinced myself that I was being set up. The scam that I thought was most likely was the "poker scam". A "friend" asks you to help play poker against a neighbor who's an asshole. They tell you that they'll feed you good cards and you all will win the neighbor's money. By the end of the game, you end up losing all of your money.
To get ready for the party, I hid my wallet and everything of value in my room. Since the driver knew what hotel I was in, I took the keychain off of my key because it had the room number on it. I brought $20 or $40 in cash in case I needed to hire a ride back to the hotel. Then I went down to the lobby to wait. The whole time I sat there telling myself what an idiot I was for saying yes.
The pick-up time arrived, and I started to feel relieved because the ride wasn't there. Just as I started to get up to go back to my room, someone came in and asked if I was John's friend. Shit! I told him I was and we got on the road.
On the drive to John's house, the cousin said that he had to make some stops. He stopped at one store and picked up some photocopies, and I knew it had to be something related to the scam they were going to pull on me.
Next, the cousin said that he needed to pick up another "friend". Oh boy, here it is. This is going to be the "asshole" friend that we're going to beat at poker. I thought to myself. I was really thinking that I should just ask him to pull over and I should get out right then and there, but I didn't.
We pulled up to the house and the cousin got out and went to the door. A few minutes later, a man and woman came out and got into the tuktuk. That man had a suspicious book in his hands. This must have been a new variation on the poker scam, I thought.
The couple introduced themselves and said they were from Korea. Then they said that they were missionaries and that John was a member of their church! The book that the man had was a bible. Then I realized that I had worked myself up for nothing.
We arrived to John's house and he was really happy to see me. The birthday party was actually a birthday party. The Korean pastor gave a short sermon in Korean and a translator translated into Khmer. Then it was on to regular kid-birthday activities.
There was cake and cousins and food and confetti.
I was relieved and happy. I was also feeling foolish for letting my cynical nature get the best of me. But at least I didn't let it prevent me from coming.
After the pastor left, the beer came out. We then proceeded to spend the night hanging out and talking and drinking in the front of the house.
It was a fantastic night. I never would have thought a kid's birthday party would have been so much fun. It was cool to feel a little bit less like a tourist and, for a short time, like someone hanging out with new friends. The Battambang birthday party would end up being one of my top memories from my two years of traveling.
The next day John picked me up for more sight-seeing. We were both a little bit hungover, but we still went to a few sights.
This brightly colored temple was pretty cool. Even though I'd recently seen the best temples in the world, this one was pretty cool. It made me wonder if the Angkor temples were colored this brightly when they were new.
We spent a few hours checking out different things.
I was really curious about Cambodia's troubled history and John didn't seem to mind talking about it. He told me stories about his father escaping from a camp and living the jungle for years. He also said that his father liked his mother, but his mother didn't like him. So his father went to the party leader of the village and made an arrangement. Then the government forced his mother to be with his father. It sounded pretty sad.
After the day of sight-seeing, John took me back to the hotel and we said our good-byes. The next day I was moving on to the next place. I feel like I really lucked out with my guide-choice when I got off the bus when I arrived. I had a great time getting to meet John and his family.
I don't know if John's information is still accurate, but if you're planning on a trip to Battambang, I recommend John Norea completely. He was such a nice guy and very informative about the area. Please try calling or emailing to see if he's still working as a guide.
That's it for my Battambang City Tour. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to see you in tomorrow's post!