Battambang

It’s dry season here in Cambodia and I’ve eaten so much rice the past few days that I totally forgot what proper bread tastes like!

We left Phnom Penh for the second largest city in Cambodia “Battambang”, pronoucend as “Bad’mboong” (I know this because I made a fool out of my self earlier trying to pronounce it right in a conversation with a local).

Battambang is known for its local market which is really an overwhelming and industrious hustle and bustle of locals. Rice is the city’s primary crop and its fertile fields have led to a mostly agricultural economy. Hence why we’ve been eating so much rice lately.

Surprisingly enough, Battambang is quite a restful place, a bit too quiet I would say. When visiting some locals we’ve heard their stories about the Red Khmers, a group of followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia that was the ruling party for almost 5 years.

This was a cruel organization that leaded the Cambodian Genocide, attempted an agricultural reform which led to famine across Cambodia and prominently is the cause of thousands of deaths because they would insist to have an absolute self-sufficiency even in the supply of medicine.

I was horrified to hear about the executions and tortures that had occurred in those years. A few locals told me that they were forced to move to the countryside and leave their homes and everything they worked for in the city. The organisation itself was officially dissolved sometime in December 1999.

The city itself wasn’t that damaged by the regime so we still saw some beautiful colonial monuments hidden in the countryside. We’ve noticed Thai influences in the architectures since the Battambang province has been among Thai government for a long time. You can still pay with baht, the Thai currency.

Greets fellow readers
Jihane