Editor’s Note: We once again hear from Hugo on his exciting trip from Phnom Penh to Battambang. As always, all content and images belong to the contributor.

Hi everyone! Again, here I am, after some new traveling experiences in Cambodia. I am still living in Phnom Penh, trying to enjoy as much as possible to travel around when I can manage time and money!
Last weekend, I decided to move on discovering Battambang, thus I booked a bus through BookMeBus to reach Battambang. I booked a Virak Buntham Night Bus leaving at 1 am from Phnom Penh night market because journey is quite long and I didn’t have a lot of time to go on travelling. That was the first time I had a night bus in Cambodia, one large bed for two persons! It was fun and I slept well so my requirements were totally fulfilled. The journey was great!

phnom penh to battambang

I arrived early morning on Saturday, I started looking for an hostel around the city center, I found one pretty great and really cheap, couple of streets up to Night Market (Sorry, I forgot the name). As I always do when I am on trip somewhere in Cambodia, I rented a moto for two days to go on discovering the city and the surroundings. I went down south, riding next to the river for some hours! Places there are amazing, great views and the atmosphere is so relaxing there when your daily life takes places in Phnom Penh! You can see monkeys, bats and some temples all around. I love Cambodian countryside, I can spend hours driving in there, getting lost on these incredible tiny dust roads.

battambang

After all this time spending on losing myself into Battambang countryside I decided to go to the “Bat cave”. This is one of the biggest touristic attraction in Battambang. This cave is under a mountain where you have many great temples as well as some historical places. At sunset time, thousands of bats are leaving this cave to live their night life! This is impressive but not as I expected… I expected to see a huge cloud of bats leaving at once, but finally they were leaving the cave in a thin discontinuous flow. However this mountain is really beautiful, I am warmly recommending you to go there and visit those temples. (Entrance fee is 1$ per person). You can either choose the road or the stairs, I personally took the stairs, it’s quick and not really tough to handle.

After this long trip, I just get back to Battambang and enjoy night market as well as some bars with backpackers I met on the way. The day after, I continue on discovering the countryside and chilling around the city, which was really great.

I enjoyed this place, countryside is beautiful and it’s a good place to relax and chill around. However I would not recommend you to stay more than 4-5 days there. Once you have seen the city (which is small) and the surroundings you don’t have much more to do and Cambodia is full of great stuff to see so you have plenty of possibilities to continue your trip around!

I hope I gave you the tips you wanted from this place!!

See around traveling,

Cheers,

Hugo

Going to Battambang?