Cambodia’s second-largest city is an elegant riverside town, home to some of the best-preserved French-period architecture in the country and to warm and friendly inhabitants. The city itself is developing fast but timeless hilltop temples and scenic villages can be seen on leisurely day-trips. The most scenic river trip in the country links Battambang with Siem Reap. Battambang has more Hindu representations (eg: roundabout statues) than you find in most parts of Cambodia and has long had a sizeable Christian minority.
Much of Battambang’s special charm lies in its early-20th-century French architecture. Some of the finest colonial buildings are along the waterfront, especially along the two blocks of St 1 south of Psar Nat, itself an architectural monument, albeit a modernist one. The four-faced clock tower is worth a look. There are also some old French shop houses along St 3, eg just east of the train station.
About half-way up the cement access road to the summit, a turn-off leads 250m up the hill to the Killing Caves of Phnom Sampeau. An enchanted staircase, flanked by greenery, leads into a cavern where a golden reclining Buddha lies peacefully next to a glass-walled memorial, dedicated in 2007, filled with the bones and skulls of some of the people bludgeoned to death by Khmer Rouge cadres before being thrown through the overhead skylight.
Two elegant – though as yet nameless – avenues, with parkland down the middle, grace the city center. One goes by the Center Cultural Français (one block north of NH5), while the other stretches west from the worthwhile Battambang Museum . Highlights include fine Angkorian lintels and statuary from allover Battambang Province, including Phnom Banan and Sneng. Signs are in Khmer, English and French.
Adapts the architecture of min 11th century and the end of 12thcentury the temple was first build by king, Ut Tak Yea Tit Tya Varman II (1050-1066) and then was finally build by the king, Jarvarman VII (1181-1219). The temple is located on the top of approximate 400 meter heighten mountain at Kon Tey 2commune, Ba Nan District in 25 kilometer distance from the provincial town by the provincial road No. 155 parallel to Sang Ke River.
In the area around the old train station – where the time is always 8.02, according to the clock – and along the tracks just south of there, you can explore a treasure trove of crumbling, French-era repair sheds, warehouses and rolling stock, evocative of times long gone. Check out the wagons’ constructor’s plates: some read ’1930 Köln’ (Cologne, Germany).
