Battambang Cambodia

Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city.

After settling into my guesthouse I took a spin around town and found all the locals hanging at the park by the river. I also found these fried little critters calling my name.

When in Cambodia do as the locals do and eat crickets.


Pleasantly surprised, but not ready to add it to my snack list.

Street performers in the park.

My first full day in Battambang was spent seeing some interesting old history and some very sobering recent history.

The first and most moving site I visited was on the hill of Phnom Sampeau called "The Killing Cave".

Over 10,000 people were thrown to their death here by the Khmer Rouge. Needless to say, the moment I stepped inside they cave I was overwhelmed with a very heavy heart.

The depressing recent history of Cambodia seems impossible in this day in age, but it seems nobody cared to step in maybe due to the lack of what they would get in return. The Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the totalitarian ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot. As power was obtained their first goal was to socially engineer the Cambodian citizens. This meant gathering and killing every person that had any advanced education. All in all, they killed over 3.5 million Cambodians, which was over half the entire population of Cambodia. The cruelty of the Khmer Rouge even went as far as bludgeoning people to death in order to save money on bullets.

Inside the cave the skull and bones of the victims have been gathered and placed in a memorial shrine.

Not far from the cave was this post where finally in 1979 the Vietnamese came in to overthrow the Khmer Rouge. Here Vietnamese artillery is pointed in the direction of "crocodile mountain" 500 meters away, which used to be a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge.

Me and my tour guide Kep.

One of the shrines being rebuilt from the destruction.

395 stairs to my next stop, the ancient Phnom Banan built in 1050.

My Cambodian name translates to "Sits like a Lion".

By the way people dress you think it is cold here....IT'S NOT!

That evening I signed up for a Khmer cooking class. Our instructor Tut first took us to the local market to gather ingredients. Cow foot anyone?

Thankfully these turtles (sans shell) weren't on the menu.

The first ingredient for the Fish Amok dish was Snake Fish.

Tut paying the bills.

There's the beef.

The students: Hannah (Holland), Antoni (France), John (Canada), and ....well you know.

The masterpiece: On the top from right to left: Beef stir-fry with chips, Spicy Mango Shrimp Salad, and the delicious Fish Amok served in a banana leaf.


On the road again.

It turns out Hannah and Antoni from the cooking class also bought motor-bikes so they invited me along to travel with them for a while.