Featured in the guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/aug/30/battambang-cambodia-art-creative-tours
Battambang is at the cutting edge of Cambodia’s new art scene. Claire Knox finds a pretty, sleepy city waking up to its creative potential
Cycling tour with Soksabike, a community project
The resemblance is
rather striking. With his dark hair swept to the side and bee-stung lips,
Cambodian painter Chov Theanly is often told he’s the dapper doppelganger of
the country’s most well-known crooner, the late Sinn Sisamouth, the Frank
Sinatra of Cambodia during the 60s, the country’s golden age.
When Khmer Rouge
soldiers marched through Cambodia’s cities in 1975, sending its people to
oppressive labour camps, film stars and musicians were some of the brutal
regime’s first targets and, like many of his peers, Sisamouth disappeared.
But today, almost 40
years later, the arts are thriving once again, and no more so than in
Battambang, a dreamy, peaceful city between the capital Phnom Penh and tourist
mecca Siem Reap. While construction has rocketed along at breakneck speeds elsewhere,
Battambang has, despite being the country’s second-largest city, remained
relatively untainted by tourism and mass development. The Sankae river snakes
through town, while rice fields, leafy villages and glittering pagodas halo
around its edges.
I meet 28-year-old
Theanly at a small, artist-run space called Sammaki in the middle of town for
an informal art tour. A graphic designer and painter who works from a cool,
airy attic above his father’s Chinese shophouse on the riverbank, Theanly is
one of a wave of home-grown artists enjoying recent success – his exhibition,
entitled Surviving, sold out on its opening night in Phnom Penh last year.
“Everything is just
very open and creative and collaborative in Battambang,” he tells me. “There’s
an honesty here.”
Perhaps at the core
of the city’s artistic revival is the visual arts centre Phare Ponleu Selpak.
The sprawling arts school teaches visual, applied and performing arts, provides
a formal state education curriculum for almost 1,000 students and welcomes
tourists through its gates almost every day of the year, with a circus troupe
performance twice a week in the bright big top tent. Phare’s visual arts
graduates are now opening their own contemporary art galleries, studios and
workshops, and we visit artist-curator Mao Soviet who runs Make Maek, and the
newly opened artist-collective space called Studio Art Battambang. It’s a
cavernous old shophouse that exhibits large, bamboo sculptures and huge
canvases. We pop next door to refuel at Kinyei, a social enterprise cafe with
probably the best coffee in Cambodia (try a piccolo or a “Cambodian street
latte” with palm sugar and orange essence).
On Theanly’s
suggestion I head to another social enterprise eatery for dinner, the
innovative Jaan Bai, on Street 2. With Bangkok-based celebrity chef David
Thompson involved in the set-up and menu design, it’s a fun spot to unwind –
local artists were commissioned to create a huge, psychedelic mural on the
restaurant’s outside wall and the menu is designed for sharing. Head chef Mohm
trained intensively with Thompson at the Bangkok Nahm and the menu reflects
this – there’s a delicious Thai green curry, a finger-licking good dish of crab
from the seaside hamlet Kep with Kampot pepper with chilli jam and a fiery
kick. Cocktails have a Khmer twist – try the dragonfruit caipirinha and the
lemongrass bloody mary.
Besides the
contemporary art scene, Battambang’s striking architecture adds to its allure.
To the north of town lies the magnificent Sala Khaet, the old Governor’s
Residence. In 1905 the last Thai “lord governor”, Chhum Aphaiwong, hired
Italian architects to erect this sweeping European-style palace. Elsewhere,
French colonial villas and art deco structures rub shoulders with striking
modernist “New Khmer” buildings erected during the 1960s.
The influence of
China is evident too – one good example is at Lotus, a sleek
restaurant-cum-gallery in a three-storey Chinese shophouse, painstakingly
restored by Battambang expat Darren Swallow. While the restaurant serves
middle-eastern fare – house-made hummus, baba ganoush, Iraqi-style laffeflatbread,
couscous and lentil salads – the second floor hosts art exhibits and screens
independent films and documentaries.
I venture out of town
on my last day and join a half-day cycling tour with Soksabike, another
community project set up by Kinyei cafe. It’s a 30km loop around the villages
and gives us a glimpse into the various agricultural industries – rice paper
production, dried fruits, rice liquor and prahok(fermented fish
paste) are some – that support Battambang’s economy.
Weaving along
palm-fringed roads in the early morning haze is a dreamy experience. We
continue down red-dirt roads, through a maze of bamboo trees and lush
countryside. Women with checked kramas (cotton scarves)
wrapped around their heads smile and wave at us.
Later, we see women
wearing hijabs in a rainbow of colours do the same. This north-western area is
home to many Muslim Cham villages, and is studded with ornate mosques. This
melting pot of cultures, ethnicities and religions, plus the juxtaposition of
old and new, is what Theanly finds captivating about Battambang, and something
he thinks makes it a great spot for creativity.
“My aunt grew up in
this town in the 1960s,” he says. “She always tells me stories of Sinn
Sisamouth coming up here to visit other stars: how they would stroll along the
river and he would play the harmonica. One of his famous songs, Oh Battambang,
is about this river, and I think most people who come here see what he saw … they
see what’s so special. I can’t imagine being anywhere else right now.”
• Singapore Airlines flies from
Heathrow to Phnom Penh via Singapore for about £680 return. Buses run regularly
from Phnom Penh to Battambang (five to six hours, $7) and from Siem Reap (four
to five hours, $4) but for a more comfortable and faster ride, a private taxi
from Phnom Penh (four hours) and Siem Reap (three-four hours) costs about $50.
Theanly’s art tours can be arranged through Lotus (#53, Street 2 ½, +855 92 260
158). They’re free but tipping your guide or making a donation to Sammaki is
recommended. Soksabike bike tours (soksabike.com) cost from $27 for half a
day. For somewhere to stay, Battambang Resort (+855 12 510100, battambangresort.com,
garden rooms from $60), lies amid rice fields on the southern fringes of the
city, and owner Phary offers food tours
