Back in the 1990s, when Ray Zepp in his trailblazing book The Cambodia Less Travelled suggested that the Cambodian countryside was worthy of exploration, people thought he was crazy.

At that time, venturing off the beaten track in Cambodia was a strict no-no. “If the Khmer Rouge don’t get you”, went the saying, “the landmines surely will”. 

The atmospheric city of Battambang, 290km from Phnom Penh, is the second-largest city in Cambodia and an architectural treasure-store.

Rail nuts can get there on the once-weekly (6:20 am on Saturday) trail from Phnom Penh, but easier options are a five-hour bus trip or (during the wet season) by boat from Siem Reap.

It is difficult to imagine that this is the same city as the Phnom Penh of 1975, a metropolis of two million that on the sudden whim of the late despot Pol Pot was forcibly emptied, to become a ghost town that languished and rotted until the downfall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

With just a little exaggeration, the New York Times recently described Phnom Penh as “the new Prague”.

Angkor, the “Holy of Holies” of Cambodia, is accessible from Phnom Penh by fast speedboat, via the vast “inland sea” of Lake Tonle Sap and the city of Siem Reap.

The boat arrives around noon at Siem Reap jetty, from where it’s a 12 km trip into town. Siem Reap has really mushroomed over the last few years, now boasting over 90 hotels and guesthouses.