French colonial riverfront, the bamboo train at sunset, and the rice wine that powers rural Cambodia — the country town that time skipped
Battambang is Cambodia's second-largest city and its most underrated — a former French Indochina provincial capital on the Sangkae River that survived the Khmer Rouge period with its 1920s–1930s French colonial architecture largely intact. The city is the rice capital of Cambodia (the Battambang plains produce more rice than any other province), a centre for fresh tropical fruit (rambutans, longans, mangosteens, durian, and the fragrant Battambang orange that Cambodians consider the country's finest), and the origin of the bamboo train — a lightweight bamboo platform (called a norry) propelle…
Battambang means 'disappearing stick' in Khmer — from a local legend of a magic staff (dambang kronhung) carried by a commoner named Ta Dambang Kronhung, who used it to seize control of the region from the king. When the staff disappeared, so did his power — and the city was named for the loss. The city was part of the Khmer Empire, then ceded to Siam (Thailand) in 1795, returned to French Indochina in 1907, and occupied by Thailand again during World War II before final incorporation into Cambodia in 1946. The Khmer Rouge used Battambang as a key base from 1975–1979, killing educated residen…