Battambang Weekend Trip: 2 Days, $200 and a Brutal Verdict

My Battambang weekend trip cost two of us about $200, all in: two nights in a hotel, the van there and back, a rented scooter, food, coffee and entry fees. My friend and I came up with the idea on a Wednesday, left Siem Reap on Friday evening, and were home Sunday night. In between we rode the bamboo train, climbed a forgotten jungle stairway, watched millions of bats leave a cave, and breathed in more dust than I knew a town could hold. Here’s what we spent, what we did, what went wrong, and my verdict on whether Battambang is worth the trip.

Our Battambang Weekend Trip Budget

We didn’t track every riel, and I spent a bit of my own money outside the shared budget, so treat this as close, not exact. For two people over two nights, our Battambang weekend trip came to roughly $200, or about $100 each.

Coffee and drinks look high next to meals, but that’s mostly coffee. At $1.50 to $2 a cup, two coffee stops a day adds up fast. The only alcohol all weekend was one $6 cocktail each on the first night.

Getting There From Siem Reap

My friend booked us on an EVgo Express electric van through BookMeBus, at $7 a seat each way. It left Siem Reap at 5:30 PM on Friday and got us to Battambang about three hours later, with one rest stop along the way. On the way home, the driver dropped us on the roadside right by my street in Siem Reap.

The full rundown, including the other vans on the route and why you should show up early, is in my guide to getting from Siem Reap to Battambang.

On the ride into town, the first thing we saw by the river was the huge black statue of Lok Ta Dambong Kra Nhoung, the figure Battambang is named after, followed by market stalls along the water. It’s a good first impression of the city.

Where We Stayed: The Royal Hotel

I booked the Royal Hotel on Booking.com: $66 for two nights, so $33 a night. That was a bit more than I wanted to spend. There were cheaper places, but I wanted somewhere clean and central with solid reviews.

Here’s a habit I’d recommend. A lot of places I looked at had great scores on Booking.com and very different ratings on Google Maps. I got burned once in Phnom Penh, when I showed up and the hotel had no record of my booking and tried to put me in a windowless room in a sketchy part of the building. Since then I check both before I book.

The Royal Hotel looked a little different from its photos when we pulled up, and I was hesitant at first. It turned out fine. Check-in was easy, and when I realized I’d forgotten my passport, they accepted a photo of it on my phone. The room had two beds, a small balcony, strong AC and a bathroom that looked freshly remodeled. Everything was clean. The staff even wheeled our scooter inside for the night.

My verdict: a good, safe pick, but $33 a night felt a little high for what we got.

The Pushy Driver Problem

The hotel arranged a pickup from the van station, and the driver who met us seemed like a nice guy. But the whole ride, he pushed hard to be our tuk-tuk driver for the next day. I told him thanks, but we planned to rent a scooter and do our own thing. He kept at it, so I took a photo of his card and said I’d call if we needed him.

The next morning, when we came downstairs, he was sitting outside the hotel waiting for us. He jumped up and told us to book him for the day, and said it would rain and we’d need a tuk-tuk. I said no again and started walking. He kept asking. That put me off more than anything else on the trip.

I understand people need work, and times are hard. Tourism in Cambodia is down sharply this year. But when someone says no, that has to be the end of it. Bottom line: a hotel pickup is just a ride. Be polite, be firm, and don’t feel bad about saying no twice.

The Dust, and the Great Sunglasses Hunt

The old part of town is beautiful, but the dust was unreal. It hangs in the air and gets into everything. After our first full day I took a shower and watched gritty black chunks wash down the drain. By Saturday afternoon I’d bought face masks at a pharmacy, and by Sunday I was coughing and running a slight fever.

Pro tip: pack a mask, sunglasses and a hat before any Battambang weekend trip. I didn’t, which led to what my friend later called her least favorite part of the trip: the great sunglasses hunt.

The sun was too bright to function without them. The first few shops wanted $50 to $60 for a pair, which is crazy. The markets only had cheap plastic ones, and I wasn’t sure those had any UV protection. We stopped at about ten places in an hour. I picked up a hat along the way, and finally found a $7 pair at Miniso with a UV protection sticker on them. I’ll admit I felt like a movie star in them.

Getting Around: Renting a Scooter

We rented a white Honda Click from a shop on the corner near our hotel for $8 a day. The hotel wanted $10. We ended up paying $12 for a day and a half, and the shop held my friend’s ID as a deposit. You have to bring it back with a full tank.

We got two helmets covered in silly stickers. The one problem: someone had bolted a phone holder onto the right-hand grip, which made the grip so thin it was awkward to reach the horn. I didn’t love that on Cambodian roads, but it worked fine for the weekend. Check the bike over before you ride away.

Saturday: Three Stops, One Big Afternoon

Saturday was the big day, and it made a natural loop on the scooter.

We started at Mrs. Bun Roeung’s Ancient House, a 1920 wooden Khmer home that the Khmer Rouge seized and used as a barracks. The family still shows visitors around. Seven minutes up the road, we rode the Battambang bamboo train, which was fun to ride but disappointing as a business. Then we rode out to Phnom Sampov for the Battambang bat cave, where I spent the hour before sunset climbing an overgrown jungle stairway alone. Then we watched millions of bats pour out of the hillside.

That climb was the high point of my whole Battambang weekend trip. If you only read one of these articles, read that one.

All three spots, plus coffee and dinner, are an easy day on a scooter. For food, see my guide to where to eat in Battambang. The short version: Monorom Garden for dinner, especially if you’re vegetarian.

Sunday: Well of Shadows and Ek Phnom

I woke up sick on Sunday and nearly stayed in the AC. We packed up, left our bags at the hotel desk, and went anyway.

Our first stop was the Well of Shadows, a memorial at an old pagoda the Khmer Rouge used as a prison. According to its inscription, 10,008 people were killed there. It was the most sobering hour of the trip, and I think everyone visiting Battambang should go.

Then we rode out to Ek Phnom, an 11th century temple about 9 km from town, built under King Suryavarman I according to Cambodianess. Unlike Angkor, there was no ticket. We just walked in. I lay on a shaded stone for a while, put my feet in the river to cool off, and slowly felt more human. We admired a cat my friend called a “monkey cat” for its face, and looked at the huge seated Buddha.

The Kathina Festival We Almost Missed

In the shadow of the big Buddha, a festival was just getting started. My friend told me it was the Kathina procession, and I didn’t understand what that meant until I looked it up later.

Kathina, called Kathen in Khmer, is the Buddhist ceremony at the end of the rainy season. Monks stay in the temple through the roughly three-month rains, and when they end, lay people present them with new robes. National Radio of Cambodia notes the ceremony runs from the 15th day of the 9th lunar month to the next full moon, which falls in October and November, so early November is prime time.

Supporters of each pagoda choose one day for their Kathen. They march in procession to the pagoda, where monks change into the new saffron robes, and the event also raises money for the pagoda, as the Cambodia Daily describes. That explains the game stalls. We played a darts game, lost, and got a snack and a bottle of water anyway.

I was sick and we had a van to catch, so we didn’t stay. If I’d been feeling better, or wasn’t leaving that afternoon, I’d have spent hours there. If you’re planning your own trip, aim for a weekend in October or November and ask locally which pagodas are holding Kathina. It’s a reason to time your visit.

After that we filled up the scooter, grabbed our bags, returned the bike and spent the last two hours at Lab Coffee waiting for our 5:30 van home. It left at 5:20, ten minutes early, so get there early.

Is a Battambang Weekend Trip Worth It?

Here’s where I landed, honestly. Would I go back for a holiday? Maybe 40 percent yes. Overall I’m 50/50 on the city, and the vegetarian food at Monorom Garden pushes me up to about 60/40.

The downsides are real. The dust got to me badly enough to make me sick. The pushy sales, from our driver to the bamboo train, wore me down. At $66 for two nights, the hotel felt a little pricey for the quality. And three hours each way is a lot for two nights.

The upsides are just as real. The jungle stairway on Phnom Sampov was the most adventurous I’ve felt in a long time. The bat exodus is a once-in-a-lifetime sight for a dollar. The Well of Shadows and the Ancient House give you a side of Cambodian history that the temples don’t. And there’s plenty I didn’t get to: the riverside walk, the more local side of the river, a couple of museums, the Killing Caves and K’trok Bar.

Bottom line: a Battambang weekend trip is worth it if you go in the cooler months, pack a mask and sunglasses, rent a scooter, and treat it as an adventure rather than a holiday.

Final Word

For about $100 a person, our Battambang weekend trip gave us a bamboo train, a jungle summit, millions of bats, two very different windows into the Khmer Rouge years, a festival we stumbled into and one excellent vegetarian dinner. It also gave me a cough. I’d call that a fair trade.

Start planning with the van from Siem Reap to Battambang, then work through the spokes above. If Battambang is part of a bigger trip, my Cambodia travel guide and list of things to do in Siem Reap will help with the rest.

Have you done a weekend in Battambang? Did the dust get you too, or did you go in a better season? Tell me on Facebook or Instagram.