Michael Batson

Kampong Chhnang is world famous in Cambodia for its earthenware pots, sold from one end of the country to the other in every market, and used for all kinds of things by all kinds of Cambodians, rich, the few; and the poor, the many. National Route Five runs right through the town and the eponymous province, which is landlocked, fertile, and forever wet. Bordering here at the centre of Cambodia are the provinces of; Kampong Thom to the north, Kampong Cham to the east, Kampong Speu to the south and Pursat to the west. The name means “Port of Pots” or “Clay Pots” and the provincial capital is situated just south of the end of the Great Lake, Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest body of freshwater, where the waters funnel into the river at Chhnuk Tru. Like a lot of Cambodia Kampong Chhnang can be a contradiction; neat but chaotic-chaos being an art form here, bustling but quiet; there’s new and old, pristine and ruin. And there are few foreign visitors, so rare enough to be an attraction or few enough so nobody notices. It’s a stop between Phnom Penh and Battambang or vice versa if going the other way. The buses drop you off at the children’s garden near the football ground on Preah Sisowath, named for a former king. The ground has no pitch markings and barely any pitch. There’s no grass, just goalposts, and a grandstand which is really more of a bandstand. Here is the provincial seat of power, the National Bank branch, and rustic-coloured governor’s building