Cambodia Day 4 – a bumpy bus from Siem Reap to Battambang

Saturday 15th October 2022

Today we travel to Battambang. Pete booked the tickets yesterday, and we’re getting a bus with Virak Buntham. I’m slightly apprehensive, as a quick google turns up very negative reviews and a dubious safety record. I am prepared for the worst, and it doesn’t help that when we get to the point on the the google map with the started location that they’d included in the booking confirmation, there’s no sign of a bus station! Keep walking, and turns out it’s about another 10 minute walk down the road. At least we’d allowed plenty of time. We get there and are directed to a waiting room – luminescent green and filled with what looked like posh bus seats from the 70s! They were comfortable enough though, so we settle down for the 30 minute wait until our bus departs.

They call us for boarding a couple of minutes before noon (the scheduled departure time). We’d pick seats in the back row, and got the whole row to ourselves – in fact there were more empty seats that filled (6 passengers for about 18 seats).

The bus departed on time, and was very comfortable, if a bit bumpy! We’d gone to the supermarket to stock up on snacks and enjoyed our “lunch” of pizza Pringles (they seem to have every flavour here!), cashews, and biscuits.

The driver must have been driving fairly speedily as we arrived a whole hour ahead of schedule (maybe that explains why it was so bumpy!). As soon as we pulled up to the stop, a huge swarm of tuk tuk drivers were clamouring at the door. I was very glad that the Lotus Blanc Homestay, where we were staying, offered free pickup (and they were already waiting despite the bus arriving an hour ahead of schedule), so we didn’t have to deal with the tuk tuk onslaught.

We dropped our bags at the hotel, the went out for a walk. The owner of the Homestay was ever so friendly, and the room was nice and clean (the bathroom wasn’t great, smelled a bit musty and was small with limited toiletries, ie just soap, provided – but for $12 a night, you can’t complain)

After walking along the river, we went to the Central Market, which was quite an interesting place.

The part we entered was full of small hairdressers, with people having their hair washed and cut in front of passers by. A bit further along, there were a load of jewellery stalls, with people actually making the jewellery next to the display counters – very fascinating to watch!

I liked the big cooking pots in the street

We then continued a short way to Pub Street – very different to the one in Siem Reap! A lot quieter, and not quite so packed with bars and eateries.

Pub street was way more low key than the Siem Reap namesake

We had a couple of beers (more expensive than Siem Reap, $1 each and that was happy hour prices), before having our first taste of western food in Asia. We went for burgers at KC burger lounge, but to be fair they were exceptional burgers. It’s owned by a French guy who makes his own bread, needless to say the buns were amazing.

After dinner we went across the road to Vintage Wine Bar Mezze for a glass of wine, and were also tempted by the cheese and charcuterie plate. A nice end to our first day in Battambang.