Cooking class at Nary Kitchen: Our plan after arriving in the later afternoon was to find a restaurant for “linner” before heading to bed on the earlier side. While doing some restaurant research, we noticed there were two popular restaurants that also offered cooking classes for roughly the price of a dinner starting at exactly the time it took us to walk downtown from our homestay. It all lined up too well not to give it a go (plus, we love cooking classes). We ended up cooking an awesome lineup of local dishes, including fried spring rolls with Taro, Fish Amok, Lok Lak (a local dish of heavily marinated protein with rice), and banana tapioca pudding. Our instructor, Chef Toot, was an older Cambodian man who spoke with conviction and repeated his instructions and teachings multiple times (and in multiple languages) to make the point. When we finally sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor with the rest of the group, we discovered one older Canadian man from Vancouver was one of the most obnoxious and misguided individuals we encountered on our travels to date. At one point, he was pontificating about his travels to Myanmar (where there is an active genocide) questioning why people would object to traveling there

Post cooking class drinks at Pomme: The bright side of the annoying Canadian man was that it brought the rest of the group, one  couple from Switzerland and one from Ireland also on year-long adventures, closer together. We ended up grabbing a few beers at Pomme, a hip open air bar in the base of a hostel off one of the main roads in town, venting about the Canadian man and swapping funny stories about our travels. It was so fun to meet two couples that were doing something similar to us in the most random of places

Full day tour by Tuk Tuk with Yo: We decided to embark on a Tuk Tuk tour through our homestay in order to maximize our one full day in Battambang. It was far and away the best way to see everything the area had to offer and we could not have asked for a better guide than Yo. Yo is an incredibly humble and nice man who grew up in the area and lost both of his parents and siblings during Khmer Rouge rule. He was adopted by a foster mother and worked his way up to owning his own Tuk Tuk, learning English, and giving tours of the city while raising his three kids (sending two of them to college). He showed us so much around the area and also shared incredibly powerful and personal details from his experience growing up during the Khmer Rouge and educating his own children about what happened to him and others at the time. The highlights included:

• Traditional Khmer House: Yo drove us by one of the only traditional Khmer houses left in Battambang that wasn’t destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. These traditional houses are beautiful and characterized by modest bamboo structures sitting on stilts

• Baha’i Temple: Yes – one of the 13 Baha’i temples in the world happens to be located just outside Battambang! We got a kick out of this having grown up down the street from the Baha’i temple in Wilmette. Like the Wilmette temple, it was very symmetrical and beautiful and we had the place to ourselves when we made the stop

• Bamboo Train: The bamboo train is a uniquely Battambang activity. It consists of a bamboo platform laid on top of makeshift wheels and bogies that used to serve as way for local people to transport goods between villages on the main rail line in between the commercial trains. These days, it is mostly a tourist attraction run by what seems to be a sort of “Bamboo Train Mafia.” Still, we had a blast riding the rickety open platform through the farms and soaking in the views while the wind blew through our hair. On multiple occasions, we had to hop off and de-rail so that an oncoming train could pass before hopping back on our way – a real experience

• Local farms: Yo drove us to one of the villages nearby where lots of produce is grown and walked us through some of the local farms. We saw fields of peppers, pomelos, mushrooms (grown the same way we saw in Da Lat!), and pineapples, and got to sample some of the goods at a local roadside stall (where they also sell 2L coke bottles filled with gasoline)

• Wat Banan: Older than Angkor Wat, Wat Banan is an 11th century Khmer temple at the top of a hill only accessible by a steep 350+ step staircase. We made the sweaty climb to the top and were rewarded by this incredibly old but well-preserved set of 5 Khmer temple towers. Covered with some jungle overgrowth and flowers, the towers were quite beautiful in the sunlight when we visited

• Killing Cave: As the horrifying name suggests, the Killing Cave is a cave outside the city where the Khmer Rouge threw their victims from a hole in the top of the cave down to their deaths. Today, a glass case at the base of the cave holds the bones of victims and serves as  memorial. It is an incredibly sobering place to visit and another reminder of the atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge rule

• Wat Phnom Sampov: Situated near the killing cave, Phnom Sampov is a lovely golden temple overlooking the valley. We enjoyed walking around the temple grounds and taking in the views of the valley among the many monkeys that also flood the area in search of food

• Bat caves at sunset: Every day just before sunset, millions of bats migrate from the caves in Battambang to the nearby lakes to find food. Yo took us to an awesome viewpoint to watch this daily migration just before sunset. Not only was the sunset beautiful, but the migration of millions of bats flooding out of the cave for what felt like an eternity was incredible. Making hardly any sound at all, the bats seemed to flow out of the cave like a steady stream of black smoke for miles. It was a great way to end our jam-packed day!