We picked up some bread and pastries from Apsara bakery, including a small, dense round pastry containing an identifiable fruity paste of marzipan-like consistency and colour with a bright orange centre like a candied chestnut. Breakfast surprise!
On the bus were a mix of Cambodians and foreigners. The bus has to travel up country to Krong Serei Saophoan and then double back around the other side of the great lake. It's a journey of just over 300km and took us three-and-a-half hours.
As we stopped briefly, we tried to sate our travelling munchies. I selected a healthy and delicious persimmon, expertly peeled by the seller, while K went for a salty snack of MSG-laden Pringles-alikes. Snacks like this are becoming more common in Cambodia and can be found alongside the more traditional fried insects and cockles, rice-based 'cakes', and roasted bananas, but are much more expensive (this tube of formed potato wafers was imported from Malaysia, while the crickets and spiders are local). I pointed out that crisps here are a luxury snack and cost as much as a dish in a restaurant. Such prices should act as a deterrent to eating junk food and towards better nourishment - imagine that spending on a bag of crisps meant being unable to afford to eat a proper meal - but with the luxury of money, our choices often depend more on convenience than cost.
Arriving at the bus station just outside of the town, we were met by the most enormous scrum of tuk-tuk drivers, scrambling at the windows of the bus for our custom. The supply of drivers outstripped the passengers' demand for transportation and some, like us, had already arranged for a pick-up, leaving the rest without a fare.
We had called 'Mr Nicky' a few days ago to organise a tour and he kindly met us at the station to take us to our guesthouse. He reinforced the impression we had about the level of competition in the tuk-tuk business. Mr Nicky is educated, speaks good English, and has managed to differentiate himself from the crowd.
Arriving at our charming little guesthouse, just west of the town centre, we checked in and were shown our room with a magnificently redundant extra double bed. We hopped almost immediately on the bikes provided to make the most of the few remaining hours of daylight. It was a straight run into town, down a dirt path passing the small burial mounds of a Chinese grave.
Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, with a population of 250,000 to Siem Reap's 175,000. However, it has a small, sleepy feel to it that I had expected of Siem Reap. Despite being on the 'outskirts' of town, we reached the river in under ten minutes and cycled happily along its edge.
Crossing over the Old Stone Bridge, we came to the east side of town, which is home to a number of monasteries and temples (wats). We stopped at one of the prettier temples (Wat Sangker) and spoke to a young monk there. He said that he is studying agriculture at the local University, but plans to study English in order to become a teacher.
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| Wat Sangker entrance gate |
Battambang is easily traversed by bicycle and we circumnavigated the river, taking in the monasteries, some of which ape the style of Angkor, and the market. Coming from Siem Reap, the traffic seemed a lot less crazy and so we cycled on to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant.
The food at the family-run Te Kuch La (formerly Mercy House) was excellent. K and I both had the oddly Japanese-named 'teppanyaki' (a sizzling hotplate, like the one I had yesterday) - K's with noodles and mine with rice. A delicious slice of soy steak, a fried egg, and some umami-rich shiitake mushrooms danced on the scalding slab of iron in a rich and savoury sauce. At the same cost as a tube of potato snacks, it was by far the better option.
Outside, darkness had descended rapidly and early, as it does here. We cycled the short distance back to the guesthouse along the path past the Chinese graveyard, lit only by a thin sliver of the waxing moon and the occasional dancing firefly.
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