Unexplained dinosaurs and psychedelic statues by the river

The morning of Day 220 (where does the time go?) was our first morning in Cambodia, and Masayo and I were looking forward to moving on from the chaotic little border town of Poipet deeper into the heart of the nation. We ended up in a place called Battambang (ក្រុងបាត់ដំបង), and it turned out to be a rather wonderful, if ragtag and bare-boned, place that we ended up spending nine days in. Calmer than Poipet, explorable by bicycle, and more than affordable. We even had a pleasant experience on an emergency visit to the local hospital.

Well, maybe “pleasant” is too strong a word.

Getting from Poipet to Battambang

After checking out of the Poipet Pass Hotel, just a few hundred meters from the Thai border, we faced the gritty and unseemly town of Poipet anew in the morning air. We had no plan, no destination, which is just as well since we didn’t know how to get around Cambodia anyway.

We ended up in a small tour shop that purported to set people up with taxis. We had by now chosen the town of Battambang as a destination, pretty much at random, and they told us to have a seat while they worked something out.

Eventually a car pulled up and we were encouraged to get in. It wasn’t marked as a taxi; it was just some guy’s car. But we worked out a price that I was more than happy with; there was a receipt and everything. We climbed in the back, and the driver plus a local woman got in. We all drove through the car-choked dirt streets of Poipet and onto an eventually paved highway outside of town.

The woman got out in another town along the way and it was just the three of us. It’s always fun to first enter deeper into a new country, be it by car, train, or bus. It’s when you first get a sense of the place; you’re usually passing through rural areas which offer a glimpse into the real heart of a country. So it was in Cambodia on the way to Battambang. Green fields of nothing stretched on either side of the small “highway”, light tan dust blowing around the baking asphalt. Quite a few people were lying around in covered wooden structures beside the road, deep asleep in the haze and rumpled hand-me-down clothes. I got the sense this wasn’t an unusual afternoon in their lives.

In Battambang

The driver pulled into Battambang and dropped us off in front of a hotel. I presumed he knew the owners and wanted to contribute to their bottom line. Anyway we thanked him and headed instead to a little shoebox restaurant down the sidewalk.

I’m always getting practice calculating how much Humalog to inject for these southeast Asian noodle dishes.

We checked into another hotel because it was very cheap. The lobby was full of locals milling about and each time Masayo and I would walk through, several of them would approach us, one by one, and ask if we’d like to take a tour around town. I have absolutely no money to spare whatsoever; it’s a miracle I’ve even gotten this far. My online income is a slow trickle. So we always said no, though I’m sure the motorbike tours being offered are probably cheap and pretty interesting.

That’s a problem with traveling on a sub-shoestring budget like this: while the challenge and skill of it is fun, you do miss out on some stuff.

Anyway Battambang is small – sizeable enough to have a personality but small enough to wander around on ones own – so we didn’t really need a tour. After a couple of days of walking the side streets, which were mostly unpaved, and eating that long-time southeast Asian backpacker favorite banana pancakes, which Masayo was particularly happy about, we moved into a guesthouse called Bus Stop, run by a large expat Australian and his Khmer wife.

This became our base in Battambang; it was near a few restaurants, it had a refrigerator in the room where I could keep my insulin (and which was stocked with cans of Diet Coke and beer with a reasonable price list), and they rented bicycles.

Cambodia is a strange place: it’s poorer than Thailand and Vietnam and its infrastructure more basic. Shops have the usual products in them but they tend to be a little more expensive than in neighboring countries, not less. This seems to be because those things have to be imported; there aren’t as many local Cambodian goods around. In the one convenience store near us, down the street from Bus Stop a few blocks, the shelves and drinks coolers were new and clean but half empty. It was like being in a town not quite open for business yet.

The sites in Battambang

We rented bicycles to tool around Battambang in and, with no plan or goal in mind, roved around the streets on either side of the small muddy Sangkae River. There are some excellent and unusual temples in the town, full (like the town lawns and its grassy roundabouts) full of colorful and unusual statues.

Wat Dom Rey Saw

In the middle of Battambang is a grandly decorated but unimposing place called Wat Dom Rey Saw. (There are multiple spellings of this name in English – you might see Wat Tahm-rai-saw or Wat Damrey Sor or any of other multitudes). When Masayo and I stumbled upon it and parked our bikes for a closer look there were virtually no other people there – just several statues depicting famous scenes from Buddhism. Gory and lifelike, done with care and passion, the compelling figures rode elephants and had their guts torn out by birds. Stunning. And Masayo even found some Japanese graffiti. One of those unexplained things that happen when you travel.

(Interestingly, our rented bicycles also came from Japan – there were stickers from their registration in Amagasaki, just outside of Osaka where we came from. Apparently Japan donates unused or confiscated bicycles to Cambodia.)

Wat Kampheng

Wat Kampheng is a little further south and featured a striking new set of statues, recently built (or recently painted at least). I believe they show scenes from the Ramayana story. The life-sized figures were scattered across a perfectly-maintained series of grassy spaces and narrow walkways. Battambang the town may be half-finished but Wat Kampheng is top-notch.

To the hospital 🙁

One day in Battambang Masayo was feeling very ill. No energy, and frequent visits to the toilet. It was Saturday morning and we trudged off to the provincial hospital a few blocks north of Bus Stop.

They were closed on the weekends, but there were a couple members of the staff walking around. They had Masayo lay down on a cart bed outside, under a covered area along a wall of the building. She lay dazed while I noticed the old blood stains on the tile floor.

Nobody spoke English so they called the doctor who could, and he rode up on his minibike, here on his day off. He spoke to us about Masayo’s illness although we couldn’t offer him too much insight. He prescribed some pills to her, then took the both of us around the back of the hospital to a small pharmaceutical hut on his minibike.

Masayo bought the pills, which cost almost nothing, and the doctor didn’t charge us anything at all for his troubles. He even rode us all the way back to Bus Stop Guesthouse which was nice because Masayo really didn’t want to walk anymore. I tried to offer him a little money for his trouble but he absolutely refused and I put the riel bills back in my pocket, thanking him with genuine smiles and gratitude.

Despite the doctor’s friendliness I was very suspicious of these pills. What were they? Why might they help? I worried. But Masayo took them, spent the day resting, and by the next day was doing fine.

This was not a diabetes-related medical situation but it underscored something I always say on t1dwanderer.com: even in the most unlikely of places, if there is some medical problem you’ll find a way to deal with it. Even in small-town Cambodia, with the local hospital closed for the weekend, we found an English-speaking doctor who fixed the problem right away and didn’t even charge us for it.

Amazing!

Battambang is a lovely place, cute and friendly and with just enough ways and means to get you by. There is a pride to the townspeople as evidenced by their gregariousness and by the devotion one can see in their temples and the public sites dotting the town. We spent nine days in Battambang and only left because, well, we’re backpacking and that’s what we do. It would have suited us both to stay a little longer, I think, but the time we did spend here was excellent. Battambang must be small-town Cambodia at its best.

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