Battambang

The best-preserved shophouse streets in Cambodia, set in the country’s rice bowl, on the road between Angkor and everywhere south of it.

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Battambang

The town the last century largely left alone

Battambang is Cambodia’s second city and does not feel like one. The centre is a few blocks of two-storey French shophouses along the Sangker river — shutters, arcades, tiled floors, a 1930s market hall — which survived because nothing here was worth knocking down. It now has a few good places to stay in restored buildings and still no crowd. Walking it takes ninety minutes, and they are the most rewarding ninety minutes of street architecture in the country.

Around the town is the rice bowl: flat, green in the wet months, gold and then stubble in the dry, threaded with lanes reaching villages that make fish paste, rice paper and palm sugar. An afternoon through that country by bicycle or tuk-tuk is the second reason to stop and for most people the better one. This is a stop rather than a destination — one night works, two are better, three would be too many.

Colonial-era shophouses line a street in Battambang under a dramatic storm sky.

Sugar palm trees dot a flat green rice field under a wide sky near Battambang, Cambodia.

The old streets · Rice country

Around the town

The hill, the caves and the bats

Phnom Sampov is a limestone hill twelve kilometres southwest holding three separate things. Temples on the top, with a view over the plain. The killing caves, where the Khmer Rouge murdered prisoners and pushed the bodies through a hole in the roof — a small, plainly marked memorial, and worth the restraint you would bring to Choeung Ek. And at the foot of the hill a cave mouth from which several million bats pour out at dusk in an unbroken ribbon that takes half an hour to pass. People come for the temples and talk afterwards about the bats.

Phnom Sampov at five — the hill first, then the bats from the road below.
Wat Banan, a hilltop temple of five towers up 350 steps, a small rehearsal for Angkor.
Ek Phnom, an eleventh-century ruin nearer the town, pleasant rather than essential.
Phare Ponleu Selpak, the circus and arts school on the edge of town, which trained the performers you may have seen in Siem Reap. The best two hours in Battambang.

A flock of bats streams out over a limestone cave mouth on a jungle-covered cliff near Battambang. — Phnom Sampov, dusk

One honest note

The bamboo railway, described accurately

The original norry was genuine improvisation: a bamboo platform on two axles with a small engine, run by villagers along the derelict French railway line because nothing else was using it. That line has been rebuilt for real trains and the old service on it is gone. What operates now is a purpose-built replacement on a short spur near Wat Banan — five minutes each way, a stop at a stall, and back. It is enjoyable, it is not what the older guidebook photographs show, and we include it as ten minutes of an afternoon rather than a reason to come.

Tourists ride a bamboo train platform along a rural rail track lined with dense bush near Battambang.

The bamboo railway

Timing

One night or two, and when

One night is the working version: arrive from Siem Reap after lunch, walk the streets, take the hill and the bats at dusk, leave after breakfast. Two nights adds the countryside and an evening at the circus school. The months follow the rest of lowland Cambodia, with one local variation: from roughly August to November a boat runs the Sangker river to Siem Reap, seven hours through villages and flooded forest, and it is a far better day than the road. In the dry season it does not run at all.

November to FebruaryDry and warm, and the countryside gold rather than green.

March to MayHot and dusty. The town is fine; the bicycle ride is not.

June to OctoberGreen, wet, and the months the river boat from Siem Reap can run.

Any monthEvenings are the point. Nothing here needs an early start except the drive out.

Onward

Where it sits on the map, and the road that no longer runs

Battambang is on our itineraries because it sits on the line between Angkor and everything south of it: a three-hour drive and a night use a day far better than six hours to Phnom Penh in one go. West of here the map misleads. Poipet and the Thai border are two and a half hours away and have been closed to tourists since June 2025, so there is no Thailand connection from this town in either direction. A rebuilt railway runs through, but passenger services are infrequent and slow and we plan around the road.

Onward leg	How long	What to know
Siem Reap	About 3 hours by road	Or seven hours by river boat in the high-water months, which is the better journey.
Phnom Penh	About 5 hours by road	Breaking that drive here is the usual reason people stop.
Kampot and the coast	A long day, via Phnom Penh	The capital is the natural overnight.
Thailand	Not available by land	Poipet and Cham Yeam are both shut; Bangkok is an hour by air from Siem Reap.

Checked 20 September 2026

The Thailand – Cambodia land border has been closed to tourists since 23 June 2025 and remains closed at both Poipet and Cham Yeam. Cambodian entry is by e-visa — 30 days, single entry — or by visa on arrival at the international airports and the main land gates, in US dollars cash with a passport photo. We do not publish fees: your coordinator confirms the current figure.

Break the drive properly.

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Tell us your dates

We will tell you whether the river boat is running in your month, and whether one night here is enough.

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Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Is Battambang worth a night?

Yes, if you are driving between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh anyway — it turns two long road days into two short ones and gives you the best colonial streets in Cambodia in between. It is not worth a detour of its own from elsewhere.

Is the bamboo railway the original one?

No. The old norry ran on the derelict French line, which has since been rebuilt for trains. What runs now is a purpose-built replacement on a short spur near Wat Banan — about five minutes each way, enjoyable enough, and not what the older photographs show.

Can I cross to Thailand from here?

Not at present. Poipet is two and a half hours west and has been closed to tourists since June 2025, as has Cham Yeam on the coast. Routes that used to run overland to Bangkok now fly from Siem Reap, which takes an hour.

Journey ideas