Where it sits
Battambang lies in the north-west between the Tonlé Sap and the Thai border, on the Sangkae river. It is the country’s second city by some measures and the centre of its most productive rice-growing region.
What to see
The town itself is the attraction: Street 2½ and the riverfront hold the finest surviving rows of French colonial and early-modern shophouses in Cambodia, and there is a genuine contemporary arts scene built around Phare Ponleu Selpak, the school that trained the Siem Reap circus performers.
Out of town, Phnom Sampeau combines a hilltop pagoda, a Khmer Rouge memorial in the killing caves, and a nightly exodus of millions of free-tailed bats from a cliff cave at dusk. Wat Banan, a five-towered hilltop temple up 358 steps, is often called a miniature Angkor Wat.
The bamboo train — a plank platform on train wheels — now runs as a purpose-built ride near Banan.
When to come
November to February for dry roads. The countryside is greenest from August to October when the rice is high.