Tag Archives: battambang
Battambang, Cambodia
Introduction Named after the vast, colourful and distinctive statue that squats imposingly at the Highway 5 roundabout (on the way to and from Phnom Penh) Battambang is Cambodia’s second city and the new kid on the tourist and traveller’s block….
Battambang Bars Update
If a stranger had told me three years ago that Battambang was ripe for a host of foreign owned drinking bars then I’d have immediately convened a psychiatric conference in Vienna to consider his possible treatment. Back then at night…
Bambi and Chips in Battambang
You’d hardly notice it, tucked away down a central but quiet and slightly gritty side road near the train station, Jip Sreng was the world’s gloomiest aircraft hanger – a vast bleak ballroom of a place more or less empty…
Two More Battambang Suppers
I inwardly groaned when Chhay Vet suggested schlepping out into the wilderness on the edge of Battambang to hit yet another fried beef place, but Goh Dut, which we can translate literally as Burnt Cow, was quite different as the…
Supper and Breakfast in Battambang
We’d planned to take last night’s supper just out of town at ‘the restaurant with three wives,’ Chhay Vet and myself, mainly because I was highly curious to see the owner, a man with not one, not two but three…
Chhay Vet: Battambang Rain Gambling
‘An odd and puzzling feature of this town was that many people looked at the sky for long periods of time, pointing at the clouds, and they did this from morning till sunset. We thought they were plane spotting or…
Another Cambodian Musical Interlude from the Past
This time we”ve chosen the song “Kolap Battambang” aka “Battambang”s Rose” by Sin Sisamout. The video is supremely non smaltchzy and simply gives the viewer ample opportunity of viewing the town of Battambang and the glorious countryside around. Sin Sismout…
Battambang: The Days After the Vietnamese Left
by Chhay Vet Vietnamese soldiers had been slowly trickling back home for years but it wasn’t until the 9th of September in 1989 that the final three divisions left Battambang. To mark this auspicious occasion a leaving ceremony was performed…
The Days After the Vietnamese Came
By Chhay Vet January 13th was the day my family was liberated by the Vietnamese but the fighting carried on for many weeks afterwards. Many Khmer Rouge soldiers were desperate and decided to fight on until their deaths. Kropeu means…
Chhay Vet: UNTAC in Battambang
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In 1991 I was nineteen years old and Cambodia still had a very tightly controlling Communist government. My country hadn’t opened up and it was only recently that the Vietnamese soldiers had left. You can imagine, therefore, the great shock…