Battambang, Cambodia – January 27th – 31st, 2017

Traveling Schmidt style is without a doubt the way to go – rather than brave yet another Asian bus, we hired a Lexus SUV to drive the family to Battambang. Although four of us were crammed in the back seat, the journey went smoothly, we arrived in about half the time that it would have taken on a bus, and the cost difference was a whopping $10 more. To make matters better, the resort we stayed out was without a doubt the nicest place we have stayed on our trip so far. It was set in the countryside just outside of town, had an incredible pool area and restaurant, and when entering our spacious luxurious bungalow, we were greeted with a flower masterpiece ordaining the bed. Yup, the $60/night price tag was well WELL worth it!

After a short stint of relaxation (we don’t sit still well), Lillian, Andy, and I rode bicycles around the surrounding villages. It was like being in Myanmar again – we were celebrities! The local kids ran out to greet us, waving energetically, and screaming “hello” as we rode by. In the evening, we took the resorts’ free shuttle (told you the place was awesome) into town for a delicious dinner at another restaurant who trains and employs underprivileged young adults (they are all over Cambodia, it’s amazing), strolled the night market, and walked along the riverside. For the second largest city in Cambodia, Battambang has a small town feel which we really enjoyed.

Battambang Resort (notice that I did not have to put 'resort' in quotation marks) and bicycling in the surrounding area. 

The following day marked our last full day with Andy’s family… sad. We hired a full day English speaking tuk tuk driver/guide to bring us to the tourist sites around town. First stop was the local morning market which was very authentic with freshly dead animals and all their innards on display, fresh fruit and vegetables, and many shops selling the same clothing, shoes, and home goods. There were also vendors making and selling the base for different types of curry – yum! Although the market was already massive, many vendors were absent because it was the 3-day Chinese New Year celebration and most people were on holiday spending time with their families and/or setting off fireworks at all hours of the day/night. After the market, we went to Wat Phnom Ek which are ruins similar to those at Angkor Wat. At the wat (aka temple), our guide told us about the Khmer Rouge and politics in Cambodia in the aftermath. During the Khmer Rouge reign, his family of seven was reduced to just him and his mother. He was born just months before the Khmer Rouge took power and grew up in a Thai refugee camp until he was 12. Although the genocide is over, the corruption in the government continues to hinder Cambodians today. We were very thankful that he was willing to share his powerful story with us. To lighten the mood, we next visited a rice noodle maker, rice wine maker, and rice paper maker (anybody else notice a trend?). The last stop in the morning was the bamboo train. The old, misaligned, warped train tracks have ingeniously been turned into a unique tourist attraction. Simple bamboo platforms placed on train wheels and powered by small motors bring you out and back into the surrounding countryside. The solution to the single track, out and back route is simple: disassemble and reassemble your train to let oncoming traffic pass. Yup, you literally get off your bamboo platform and stand aside while your train engineer takes apart and removes the platform/wheels from the train tracks, then reassembles after the traffic has passed. To turn around, he simply rearranges the wheels and turns the platform 180 degrees. 

After a jam-packed morning, we returned to the hotel to eat lunch and relax for a couple of hours before venturing out again in the afternoon. Instead of napping (which we were all ready for), we walked up many stairs to Wat Phnom Sapeau to a nice overlook before visiting a killing cave. During the Khmer Rouge period, tens of thousands of victims were murdered and their bodies dropped down a hole at the top of this cave. It has since been cleared of the human remains, except for a few glass cases filled with clothing remains, skulls, and other bones, and the large cave is now a Buddhist temple and memorial. Our guide said that the first time he brought tourists to the cave, he was beside himself emotional with the thought that his father's and siblings' remains may have once been inside… Last stop for the day was a bat cave. At sundown, about 6,000,000 bats came rushing out of a single small cave opening. The bat parade (more accurately, bat stampede) lasted over 30 minutes! It literally looked like streamers of bats exploding out of the cave and rushing into the distance as far as you could see. As you can tell, it was an incredible and incredibly busy day! 

Morning fun in Battambang. Top row: market goodies, middle row: Wat Phnom Ek, bottom row: rice paper production, bamboo train, and me petting friendly kitty. 

Afternoon around Battambang. Clockwise starting in the top-left corner: bat cave, bat swarm, killing cave, violent Buddhist imagery showing your fate if you sin, view from hill-top pagoda, hill-top pagoda.  

The Schmidts departed for Phnom Penh early in the morning so we got up to say our farewells and thank them for the unforgettable week in Cambodia. Since we are cheap (and unemployed), we had arranged to stay at a $10/night hotel closer to the city, but why leave, when check out time isn’t until noon? Noon came and went, but rather than leave, we hung out by the pool until the free afternoon shuttle was available to take us into town. 

Over the next two days, we finally got our shit together. We tentatively planned out the next week, fixed a phone screen, Andy got a haircut, rented a campervan for New Zealand, bought flights, and more. Feeling accomplished, we went to check out… this is when shit hit the fan. We had called the night before arriving to make the reservation and agreed on the price ($10/night), which was within 50 cents of the price listed on an online booking website (which charges commission); however, when we went to pay, we were told that the price was $18/night! We explained that that was not what we agreed and eventually, the hotel receptionist, called the owner who stopped by to talk to us. Things went from bad to worse when the owner turned out to be a crazy person. He accused us of lying and pulling up the booking website after the fact to prove our point. We refused to pay more than the price listed online and when he refused to budge things got escalated. Eventually, we paid him what we owed him (based on our original agreed price and the price online) and attempted to leave. The owner, now screaming, tried to force us from going by threatening to call the police and physically grabbing my bag and pulling me backwards. We left anyway, at this point, mostly to get away from this maniac. About 3 minutes after leaving, it occurred to us: we are in Cambodia, what if he actually calls the police and they accuse us of stealing? Our worst fears were realized about an hour later when the police and the crazed hotel owner tracked us down at the bus station (apparently, he was not bluffing about calling the police). We were incredibly lucky that the police officer was not an underpaid corrupt Cambodian policeman that you apparently have to bribe to get them to do their job, but an English-speaking tourist police officer who only wanted to remedy the situation. Additionally fortuitous, the police man sided with us completely, often attempting to conceal a smirk at the ridiculousness of the situation. This only made the hotel owner more pissed, he literally yelled at us for over 20 minutes, ripped up our passport copies, and almost ripped up our $20 payment (but thought better of it). It was a terrifying experience, but in the end staying calm and allowing the hotel owner to yell, only made him look like more of an ass hole and us look like innocent victims (which we were!!!). More than a little rattled, we boarded our now late bus to Siem Reap on our way to Laos. We seriously dodged a bullet with that one, I think next time we’ll just pay the $18…