Angkor Photo Workshop 4

The next stop on this year’s  Angkor Photo Workshop was Battambang. Battambang is Cambodia’s second largest city and the capital city of Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia. Founded in the 11th century by the Khmer Empire, Battambang is well known for being the leading rice-producing province of the country.

‘Dambang’ means ‘stick’, and ‘bat’ means ‘to lose’ – so, translated literally, Battambang means “town of the lost stick”. The name comes from a legend of a peasant farmer who found a stick with magical powers. With the stick, the man could control his cows just by throwing it at them. With this magic stick the peasant eventually became a king. Anticipating his days of rule were coming to an end, the peasant turned king, threw away his magic stick and ran away. The stick was lost, but is said to have landed somewhere along the riverbank of the O’Dambong River, near to where the city known as Battambang is now located.

Battambang sees only a fraction of the tourists that Siem Reap receives, and thus retains the feel of “real Cambodia”. Backpackers know Battambang as the place where one can ride the “Bamboo Train”, an innovative way that local people devised to use the railway for transportation. I’ll be posting shots of the bamboo train in my next blog post, so please stay tuned. For now, I’ll share some of the last few images from Phonm Penh, a few from the trip to Battambang and some made on our first photo walk in town on the afternoon that we arrived.

 

Scott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ivy

 

 

Scott, Diane and France