Battambang
Sleepy colonial streets best seen by bicycle.
Battambang is off the beaten path and only recently rescued from the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge (mid-2000) so you may find yourself as part of a small group of foreign tourists. Full of beautiful, but slowly decaying French colonial architecture, it has a classical European style street plan of wonderful shops and a unique movie theater. We biked through the town and stopped at historic houses and markets. We climbed to the top of Phnom Sampeau, notorious during the civil war for the killing caves, but gorgeous temples and millions of bats at dusk. And of course, the bamboo train — cheesy and unique — thought to be taken apart as the new train line was built, they kept it in place with its own unique touristy infrastructure intact as well.
