Global Reflections

On Saturday, we checked one item off our Cambodia bucket list—we visited Phnom Tamao Zoological Park and Wildlife Rescue Centre. Phnom Tamao is advertised in Phnom Penh as a zoo, but it’s much more than that—it’s one of the best wildlife rescue centers in Southeast Asia, where the goal is to treat the animals’ medical needs and release them back into the wild, not to display them to the public. The animal handlers that I saw wore Wildlife Alliance t-shirts, so I assume there’s a relationship between Phnom Tamao and Wildlife Alliance, though I’m not certain exactly that that relationship is.

Rather than going on our own, which would have been entirely possible, we arranged to join a tour run by Betelnut Jeep Tours. Their website promises exclusive access to the animals and to not-open-to-the-general-public areas, as well as transportation and lunch. Overall, we were happy with their services and with our experience at Phnom Tamao, but I was disappointed that some aspects of the tour didn’t quite match up with the website’s promises or with the experiences that I know others have had with them—we weren’t able to go into the tiger house, nor did we have any up-close interactions with the animals that weren’t available to everyone (except for going “backstage” between the otters and the leopards, which did get us significantly closer to the leopard than we would have been out on the main path—but I’m not sure that counts as an “encounter” since it would be foolhardy at best to pet a leopard); of less importance, there was no traditional Khmer wine or betelnut chewing lesson after lunch. (To be fair, I was dehydrated enough that I would have turned down the wine, and I’d already decided to watch but not participate in the betelnut chewing. I mostly was interested in the photographic opportunities of the betelnut lesson.) Despite my awareness that parts of the experience were not as advertised, however, it was a good day, and I do believe that it’s worthwhile to visit Phnom Tamao for the first time with Betelnut. Subsequent trips, if you’re in the area long enough to have them, would be equally enjoyable on your own, once you’ve had the guided tour once.

Our day started out at the Lazy Gecko Café & Guesthouse, which I believe is run by the same couple that does Betelnut Tours. We confirmed with Aram, the owner-operator and our tour guide, that we’d be able to interact with the elephants that day (we’d rescheduled twice due to elephant unavailability), paid our fees ($33/adult, with a discounted price for Alexa), and settled in alongside the 9 or so other tourists to wait for the Jeep to arrive. We were all hatted and sunscreened, expecting a full day in the sun, with transportation by open-top Jeep, so I was pleasantly surprised when Aram offered Alexa and me the covered passenger seat by the driver. We all settled in and enjoyed the just-over-an-hour drive, especially once Alexa settled down for an early nap.

Once at Phnom Tamao, our first stop was a huge enclosure in which a herd of Sambar deer roamed freely. The deer came right up to us, accepted food from our hands, enjoyed some petting, and even head butted a few of us for neglecting the wrong deer. Fortunately, close attention is paid to the deer’s behavior, and the ones that are a little more assertive have had their horns cut. The ones that are aggressive are in separate enclosures within the larger one.

 

Several other animals also are in smaller enclosures within the large Sambar deer one. We saw Siamese crocodiles, rox turtles, yellow tailed squirrels—according to our guide, the only two in captivity—and a couple of storks who were recovering from broken wings. We also met a few macaques—several wild ones that had wandered into the enclosure on their own, and one male gibbon who has to be kept in a separate, small enclosure because his cataracts have caused him to lose his sight almost completely. The blind gibbon had been raised as a pet, loves human attention, and never will be released into the wild. A charitable organization is trying to raise money for surgery on his eyes so that he can regain his sight and be placed in a larger enclosure, possibly even with a mate.

 

After leaving the Sambar deer enclosure, we walked past several other enclosures of varying sizes—a relatively small one with a few more Siamese crocodiles; a huge one with some Sarus cranes, Eld’s deer, and beautiful Green peafowl; and another smaller one with an iguana that was confiscated while being imported illegally into Cambodia. We also saw a silver langur and some Cambodian jungle cats.

 We also met a family of pileated gibbons, which included an adorable infant, the two parents (mated for life), and an older brother. This family lived in their own enclosure, which shared a wall with the enclosure for a widowed pileated gibbon—she never will mate again or be part of a family group, and family groups don’t share territories with other gibbons, but proximity to other gibbons is good for her. This particular widow tends to get a little angry and hold grudges: some tourists once gave her a can of beer, which she proceeded to enjoy until Aram took it away from her—beer is ok for them in small quantities, but a whole can is too much—and she proceeded to shun him for the rest of that visit and for his next one. When I stopped petting her a little too soon, she literally showed me her backside, another behavior that Aram said is typical.

 

After a few more enclosures (myna birds, chickens, and bats), it was time for lunch. We ate on one of several raised platforms under a wood roof. While we had been meeting the animals, Aram’s wife had cooked a delicious Khmer meal for us: rice, loc lac, a noodle dish, sweet and sour vegetables, and a few meat-in-sauce dishes whose names I don’t know. I briefly considered taking a photograph, but we were all pretty hungry, and we just dug in instead. Water was included with the tour, but Jeff and I chose to purchase fresh coconuts (only fifty cents each) and drink the coconut water instead—it’s tastier, it replenishes lost electrolytes, and two coconuts was more than enough for all three of us. Fresh pineapple for dessert rounded out the meal and utterly delighted Alexa.

 

After lunch, it was time to meet Lucky, one of the Asian elephants who live at Phnom Tamao. Lucky came out and did a little show—taking a bow, playing limbo before deciding to just break the post instead, lying down, and playing soccer with his handler—before coming to greet his fans and accept his payment: pets, pictures, and sugarcane. When Alexa got up the courage to try to feed him (she’d been a little iffy about petting or feeding all the animals, as she’s cautious by nature), Lucky didn’t seem to notice the sugarcane she held out toward him. Aram’s wife gave her a mango to try instead, and sure enough, it worked like a charm: Lucky not only took the mango from Lexa, but started accepting sugarcane only to throw it on the ground, holding out for more mango.

After Lucky’s show, we piled into the Jeep to head to a slightly more distant section of the rescue center. There we saw five Burmese pythons huddled together in their enclosure and learned that they each eat one live chicken a week—they only grow as large as their diet allows, and they don’t require much energy at all, so those kept as pets may eat as little as one mouse a month.

 

Then we went into a restricted area beside the enclosure that holds two otters, allowing us a closer look than we’d get from the public area. It’s a testament to Phnom Tamao’s status as a rescue center, not merely a zoo, that the otters have two rather large areas, connected by a small gate. One area has toys and a more “homey” feel—that one is their living habitat. But in the wild, otters do not hunt where they live, so the other habitat is designed to be their hunting habitat, preserving the separation that they prefer.

After we’d finished looking at the otters, we turned around and prepared to follow Aram to the next enclosure. He cautioned us to stay to the otter side of the narrow (maybe one meter across) path, and then I saw why: a leopard was lying on his side of the chain link fence, mere inches from the path, watching us closely—and the fence actually had a little outward arc to it that suggested that the leopard was not content always just to lie there. It’s easy to see how he could have gotten a swipe at us had we not avoided that side of the path. We saw two leopards in that enclosure, though only one came close, and were told that another male was in the building; he and his brother aren’t getting along right now, so they have to take turns being outside.

Then we headed across the street to the binturongs’ enclosure. These animals were the strangest ones we saw, without a doubt. They looked like a cross between a bear and a squirrel, smelled like popcorn, and giggled like little girls. Jeff was fascinated with these creatures; Alexa was trying to decide whether or not they were interesting enough to stay awake and watch; and I was frustrated that the darn things didn’t want to go anywhere that would allow me a good picture—they’re nocturnal and mostly were interested in lying around on platforms high off the ground.

After checking in with a couple of solitary gibbons, we headed over to the tiger area. We saw all three of the tigers who live at Phnom Tamao—the father, the mother, and the now-adult son who was conceived and born at Phnom Tamao when mom’s birth control failed. They try not to breed any tigers at Phnom Tamao, because tigers born into captivity never can be released into the wild.

We walked by the elephants’ enclosures but weren’t able to get close to them. Aram told us the histories of the animals there, including the one who lost his leg to a snare. He now has a prosthetic leg, which is replaced as necessary as he grows. Apparently he’s ok with his keepers now, but for a while after receiving his prosthesis, he would cower in a corner when they came near for fear they would take it away from him (they had to take it off periodically to check his stump, or for maintenance, or to fit a new one).

Our last stop of the day was the area reserved for bears. This area is a project of Free the Bears and currently houses around 220 bears. Many of the bears were rescued from restaurants that illegally serve dishes such as bear paw soup—cutting the paw off the live bear in front of the customer to ensure its freshness. Others were rescued from traps, from smugglers, or from owners who mistreated them.

 

After the bears—and a few lions who wouldn’t come near enough the edge of their enclosure for me to get a decent picture—it was time to pack it up and go back to Phnom Penh. Since there wasn’t room for everyone in the Jeep (as we traveled around Phnom Tamao, a few were hanging off the sides, which was neither practical nor safe for the trip back to Phnom Penh), our family and another couple rode with Aram’s wife in her comfortably air conditioned car. Alexa quickly fell asleep, Jeff dozed a bit, and I just relaxed, content to be sitting down and cool after a good but hot and tiring day at “the zoo.”

I have always had perfect teeth.

No, seriously, I am not kidding*. No cavities. No braces—although it isn’t unheard of for people to assume that I have had braces. They’ve gotten a little less white than they used to be, after I became a coffee addict several years ago, but that’s only noticeable if you’re really looking for it. So, yeah, perfect teeth.

And then.

Then, it was Sunday evening, and I was eating leftover pad thai. Suddenly it felt like my teeth … slipped … for lack of a better word. And then there was a chunk of peanut in my mouth that didn’t crush like the other peanut bits did, so I spit it out into my napkin. A little lighter colored than usual, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

After we’d finished eating, I noticed something strange. Apparently a bit of food had gotten stuck onto one of my molars—a slightly sharp bit of food. Very weird, maybe some crazy bit of peanut? That’s the only hard thing in pad thai, or maybe one of the tiny shrimp. But I couldn’t pry it off my tooth with my tongue … or with my fingernail … I started getting a little concerned. As soon as I got Alexa down for the night, I brushed my teeth, hoping like crazy that the rough spot would go away.

It didn’t.

Instead, as I was brushing my teeth, I noticed something even worse: a tiny gap between the something-sharp-on-it tooth and the tooth behind it. I probed the other side of my mouth with my tongue—no gap there. I’ve never noticed a gap on this side either … and suddenly I remembered that slightly too white piece of really hard peanut. Apparently it wasn’t peanut at all.

I started feeling a little queasy. Now what? At home, I’d know exactly what to do: first thing in the morning, call the dentist, make an appointment, and get it fixed. Expensive? Probably. But simple. Here? I didn’t even know which dentist was health unit-approved.  And to make matters worse, we were on the eve of Pchum Ben, a 3-day holiday in which the spirits of the dead are thought to return and therefore must be honored and fed—a very big deal to Buddhist Cambodia. The medical unit at the embassy had sent an email the previous week letting us know that pretty much all medical facilities in Phnom Penh would be closed for everything but emergencies.

Can I just say now that I am so incredibly grateful to God that this break in my tooth did not affect the root, that it was just the enamel? There was no pain, just some anxiety. I was anxious about what foods to eat. I was anxious about the treatment for a broken tooth. I became very anxious when I read on one website that breaks that start at the bottom and go up, as this one seemed to because the top of the tooth was still intact, usually require the removal of the tooth, and then I’d need an implant and … I do NOT want to think about having a tooth pulled, or about having a metal screw inserted into my jaw, or about six months of recovery time before going back in for the next step of getting an implant … yeah, no, not thinking about that possibility. I much preferred the website that said for minor breaks, it usually is possible to use some kind of filling to repair the damage.

So, back to the story, my first thought was “find a dentist.” I have a friend who’s recently had dental work done locally, so I emailed her and asked for contact information. I also knew that the embassy and its health unit would re-open on Wednesday, and if it was an emergency, I could call our doctor, or the U. S. embassy doctor in Bangkok, but I didn’t really count this as an emergency, since there was no pain. Local dental facilities most likely would not re-open until Thursday, and I’d be surprised if I could get a non-emergency appointment before Friday. I had some time to figure things out, and Jeff preferred that I get a recommendation from the health unit. So I also sent an email to the health unit explaining the situation and asking for a referral.

I heard back from my friend on Monday and checked out the website for that dentist. I was impressed—I think it’s probably a top-of-the-line clinic. But on Wednesday, I heard back from the health unit. They had a list of two that they recommended—one that active duty military are required to use (we’re not military) and another that others often choose to use. But there’s a new British dentist at the first, SOS International, and our doctor would like some feedback on that new dentist. After a quick consultation with Jeff, the decision was made: I’d go to SOS.

So on Wednesday, I called SOS International, not really expecting an answer—I knew they were still closed for Pchum Ben. But there was an answer, so I asked for an appointment. Once I said for the third time that I needed a dentist and not a general practitioner (SOS is an all-fields-of-medicine clinic), the receptionist said that the dentist was all booked up for Thursday, could I wait until after Thursday? I said that I could, but I really wanted the earliest appointment available, as my tooth had broken. “Oh, let me call the dentist and see if you can come tomorrow.” I provided my phone number for a call-back. I received one, but it was just confirming what I’d already told them, and I was promised another call-back. That one never came.

On Thursday, I called back. I’m not sure if it was the same receptionist, but I don’t think it was—this one had better English and seemed more professional. We made an appointment for Friday morning at 9:30, the perfect time for me, as my housekeeper arrives at 9 and could care for Alexa while I was there. He even volunteered the fee amount. And then I told him that I didn’t need just a general consultation, my tooth was broken, and how would that affect the amount of money I should bring? “Oh, you need a dentist, not a general physician? I’m sorry, I was confused, let me check on the times available for that … we have tomorrow morning at 8:30. Can you come then?” I asked if there was a later time, but there wasn’t. That was the only time all day. I made a quick decision and hoped it would work out—yes, I’ll come at 8:30. Then I immediately went to my housekeeper and asked if she could come in at 8 instead of 9 on Friday. Yes. Sigh of relief.

I arrived at SOS International around 8:15 and followed the signs to the upper floor for the dental clinic. The receptionist, who spoke excellent English, gave me some forms to fill out—forms that would have been perfectly at home in any dental office in the States. After I completed and returned them, I looked around the waiting area, which was not particularly similar to the relatively plush waiting rooms in many American medical offices. It reminded me of the waiting room in the old hospital, since completely renovated, in my small hometown: very spartan and utilitarian, with white walls and floors, light colored furniture, a single television mounted on the wall, and medical posters for decoration.

I was called to the examining room maybe 10 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. It turns out that the new dentist from the UK is the only dentist currently on staff, and although I don’t recall her last name, her first name was easy enough for me to remember: Deborah. Dr. Deborah was friendly and professional. She examined my teeth, confirmed the one break, identified another tiny one that I still can’t find for myself, and asked if I grind my teeth—apparently my canines have a bit more wear than normal. She did x-rays to determine if there was an underlying decay problem that caused my tooth to break, but it turned out that there wasn’t. It just broke. The bad news: No real insight as to why it just broke. The good news: It could be repaired with a simple filling and should be good as new, or at least as close to it as it’s possible to get.

Dr. Deborah introduced me to some dental tools with which I’d never had reason to become acquainted: a blue mat to keep the saliva away from the tooth on which she was working, a brace to contain and shape the filling before it hardened. She tested out the brace for fit, then removed it before installing both it and the mat. It didn’t feel quite the same with the mat as it had without it, but I didn’t think too much of it … and then I swallowed. The brace flew across the room. Apparently that one didn’t fit right. Let’s try a smaller one.

The smaller brace didn’t work either. Apparently my teeth are too close together for it to fit properly with the mat. So we did it the less ideal way: without the mat, using a round something or another instead of the brace, and with lots of suction to keep the filling material as dry as possible until it could be hardened with ultraviolet radiation. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable 10 minutes or so as the filling was inserted, shaped, and hardened, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been, either. After a little rinsing and polishing, I was good to go, with permission to eat and drink normally whenever I wanted.

As I waited at the receptionist’s desk to pay my $170 bill, I noticed something on Dr. Deborah’s biography. She had seemed particularly sensitive to cues that I was anxious, but I had attributed that to her personality or maybe her gender—she happens to be the first female dentist I’ve seen, and women stereotypically are more empathic than men. Her sensitivity to my anxiety may have had something to do with those things, but I’d be willing to bet it also had to do with her specialized training in treating phobic patients.

And on her own, without any prompting from me or any mention of my previous “perfect teeth” status, Dr. Deborah said: “And you can still say you have perfect teeth, since it wasn’t caused by decay.” I’m not sure I’d go that far … my teeth are no longer perfect, but they’re close enough for me.

*Well, there was that occasional sharp pain when biting down on something particularly difficult to chew. That happened so rarely and so briefly—the pain lasted about a nanosecond—that I never really paid attention to it. My later research told me that it was a symptom of a cracked tooth, and it should have motivated me to see a dentist as long ago as a year. My advice: If you ever experience pain in a tooth or in your jaw while chewing, see a dentist, and ask to have your teeth checked for cracks.

The evening of our arrival in Battambang, we had plans to go see the circus. I hadn’t been to a circus since I was a small child, and my memories of it involved the stereotypical big tent, three rings, animals, clowns, jugglers, and maybe a few tumblers thrown in just for fun. I had an idea that this circus would be different when Jeff pointed out that some of its former members now are part of Cirque du Soleil. My thoughts: “Oh, this is going to be more of an acrobatic circus. Cool!”

The show did involve amazing acrobatic feats, and they indeed were very cool, but it turns out that this circus is even more than that. This circus was Phare PonleuSelpak.

Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO; often called simply “a charity”) that was started in 1986 in a refugee camp near the Cambodia-Thai border. From the website: “The idea of a creative association, which would use art and expression to help young refugees overcome the trauma of war, emerged from drawing workshops held for children in the camps. This original idea continued after the refugees returned to their homeland, and PPS was formally founded in 1994 by a group of former Site 2 [Refugee Camp] children.” Phare Ponleu Selpak is centered in Battambang and currently serves over 1,000 children in various ways. Some attend a public school that is sponsored by the organization; others receive free medical care and meals; and many have access to a library and leisure center. But those are not the things for which PPS is most widely known.

PPS is known as a training center for artists, musicians, actors, and circus performers. During our time on the PPS campus, we experienced the results of training in all of these areas.

Upon our arrival, we first were ushered into a building in which original artwork was displayed. The work consisted of pencil drawings as well as paintings, using a variety of mediums and styles. I so wanted to take pictures of the art, but that just felt wrong—the work was for sale, and it would have been too much like stealing to create a digital copy rather than purchase the original—so I took pictures* only of two huge sculptures that were displayed in the rafters. These sculptures obviously paid homage to the circus school, which attracts so many paying visitors to the campus. A friend purchased small paintings of Buddha faces carved into stone, as well as a set of paintings of Ta Prohm. I came close to buying a painting (or two) of traditional, raised Cambodian houses, and I also gravitated toward one of the Ta Prohm paintings, but I realized that we purchased so much papyrus in Egypt, and we’ve already purchased or planned to purchase several other pieces of wall art here, that we simply won’t have wall space for much more. So I resisted the urge … I’m still not certain that was the right decision!

After we browsed in the art gallery for a while, it was time to go to the circus pavilion. This area was a relatively small, open-aired structure: a flat paved stage, with curtains hiding the backstage areas behind it, a small musicians’ area beside it, and bleachers in front of it, all covered by a roof supported by poles, on which hung the necessary spotlights. Not a particularly impressive setting for what turned out to be a very impressive show. 

Even after learning that the circus is more acrobatic than animal, my expectations turned out to be too low. I expected spectacular feats, to be sure, but I expected acrobatics, and that was it—maybe I’m just revealing that I’ve never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, but it didn’t occur to me that there was more to it than acrobatics. This was so much more than acrobatics. This was drama, set to music, accompanied by the creation of original paintings, and telling the stories both of one woman and of a nation.

The show started with an old woman hobbling out onto the stage. She was bundled up against the incessant chill that her old bones probably felt on the warmest of days, wearing glasses, and carrying a book that she obviously treated with great love and respect. As she sat down to read, however, she fell asleep … and the story began.

Several young men ran onto the stage, and with loving tenderness, they began to rewind the clock. Away went the book. Off came the glasses, then the scarf. With each article that she no longer needed, the woman straightened, became more energetic … became younger, until at last there was a young girl sitting there. The girl hopped off the stool and started playing with her friends, at least until the teacher came in and forced them back to work.

Meanwhile, off to the side, an artist unobtrusively painted a serene Buddhist monk, in his bright saffron robes, on a previously blank canvas.

The  show continued with snippets of the girl’s life. We watched her grow into a young woman, start dating, have children, become a teacher—each phase marked by exuberant, awe-inspiring feats of balance and agility by both the girl and those around her. Along the way, we saw a night when she was tormented by demons—a night when she almost died, and the serene monk was covered over with black and spattered with red. A night when her country was ransacked and her life was endangered by the Khmer Rouge.

We also saw the dawn, when the young woman rose from her bed, triumphant merely because she still breathed. On canvas, we saw a tranquil farm on a dirt road—and we saw a city rise in the background, the brown dirt road transform into the black of asphalt, and street lights appear. We saw peace and hope return to the country, and to her life.

Eventually, we saw the young woman grow old. We saw her grow bent and frail. And we saw the tenderness with which her sons treated her as she released her cares and her frailties and passed on from this life.

We saw this woman’s life story. We laughed at her childhood antics, we feared for her life, we rejoiced with her when she fell in love. We shared her pride as she watched her children (or maybe her students) grow and develop and fulfill their potential. We felt a quiet sadness at her passing, and yet recognized her satisfaction at a life well lived.

All of this without a word.

That was Phare Ponleu Selpak.

*None of my pictures turned out very well. Even in the art gallery, which was well lighted, the rafters were a bit dark. And during the performance itself, of course it was dark, and flash photography was not allowed because it could distract the performers. The combination of low light and quick motion meant that these photos by far are not the best pictures I’ve ever taken.


**********

This past weekend was a long one, thanks to Labor Day, and a very good one, thanks to the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO). The CLO organized a trip to Battambang, and our family took full advantage of this lazy-person’s opportunity to see more of Cambodia without putting in any of the work to plan the trip. Battambang is Cambodia’s second largest city, but unlike the other major population centers, it retains the feel of traditional Cambodia—it doesn’t attract as many expats as Phnom Penh or as many tourists as Siem Reap. There are some temples worth seeing and a couple of tourist attractions that are unique to Battambang, and I hope to talk about these in a future post, but this post is all about the resort.

Battambang Resort just opened in January 2012, but it already has a reputation for excellence. As far as I can tell, the reputation is well deserved. The resort is owned by a married couple, who were readily available and engaged in making sure every need and want was satisfied. The staff was friendly—especially toward Alexa, as Cambodians in general love children—and did everything in their power to make our stay pleasant.

 The other major feature of the resort was the restaurant. We ate all of our meals there, rather than taking the 10- or 15-minute tuk tuk ride into town for meals. Breakfast was included in the price of the room, and we could choose from four pre-set menus: the Bakery Breakfast (pancakes, French toast, and various other breads), the American Breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, and various breads), the Healthy Breakfast (fruit, yoghurt, cereal, and various breads), or the Asian Breakfast (I didn’t consider this one seriously enough to remember what was included), all of which came with coffee or tea, orange or apple juice, and butter and homemade dragonfruit jam as needed. Jeff and I ordered the American Breakfast for ourselves and the Healthy Breakfast for Alexa, and we all went away very satisfied. For lunch and dinner, there were sandwiches, salads, western meals, and Asian meals. During the course of the weekend, I tried one sandwich, one cheeseburger, one wrap, two Asian meals—sweet and sour pork and chicken with cashew nuts—and one dessert. All of it was very tasty and reasonably priced. The Asian meals were a little spicier than expected, but they still tasted good. The quality of the food undoubtedly was enhanced by the fact that a lot of it, including the rice, is grown in the resort’s garden and therefore was much fresher than the fare to which we Americans are accustomed. Even the potato chips were homemade!

 

Service at the restaurant was good. The staff was responsive to requests in those rare circumstances that our needs were not anticipated. There were a couple of meals where it took a while for the food to be prepared, but that was because the kitchen simply was overwhelmed by our large group all ordering at the same time. In most cases, an entire resort’s worth of guests probably do not order meals at once, and during the times that we were able to set our own schedules a bit more, and therefore spread out our meals, service was reasonably paced. The staff also was open to taking orders in advance and to preparing food for take-out, which proved convenient for our bus ride back to Phnom Penh.

 As a side note, there is a generator for the kitchen, and the seating area has lots of natural light (it’s covered but has no walls), so the restaurant remained open even with the power outage. The staff also had no problem with one family storing their babies’ bottles in the restaurant’s refrigerator during the outage or, for that matter, the rest of the time, in case of further power outages.

The resort grounds were beautiful, to put it simply. The pool was right beside the restaurant, with a lake on one side and the garden view rooms on the other. Fruit trees and flowers grew everywhere—I took a picture of a banana tree while sitting at lunch one day, and I have some gorgeous pictures of Alexa walking along the flower-bordered path to our bungalow. I did not ask for a tour of the gardens, though now I wish I had—I would love to have pictures of the rice field, the herb gardens, and the fruit trees.

The owners also happily arranged for rides to town, tuk tuk tours of the area, and tickets to the Phare Ponleu Selpak circus. There was a small gift shop where several of us purchased Kampot pepper, lemongrass, oil burners, or wooden canisters, Buddhas, or other carvings, all at reasonable prices.

 

 And, finally, speaking of prices: Battambang Resort may cost a little more than other hotels in Battambang, but it's well worth any slight increase in cost. By western standards, the prices are incredibly reasonable. Depending on the season and room type, prices range from $45 to $75 a night for a garden or lake room. (Apparently there also are or will be family rooms/suites available at a higher cost, but these did not seem to be in use during our stay.) Breakfast and wi-fi are included in the price. I don’t recall the exact prices of other meals, but most of them were $5 or less.

Bottom line—I highly recommend Battambang Resort. Whether you’re in the area for business or pleasure, whether you intend to spend your days sightseeing or lounging around the pool, Battambang Resort is a great place to make your home base.

Battambang series:

1: Battambang Resort

2: Phare Ponleu Selpak

3: A Morning in Battambang
4: Caves, Mountains, and Monkeys: An Afternoon in Battambang