Phnom Sampeou is a natural site located just 12 kilometers from Battambang city on National Road number 57. This is the road to Pailin, and in the not to distant past was called Road number 10. The French not being particularly inventive when it came to making up the names for the streets in this part of the world.
Phnom in Khmer means mountain and the Sampeou (Sampov) part of the name means a type of ship. I guess if you squint a little and use your imagination than the resemblance to a ship works. Just not a type of ship that I am familiar with. But atop this 100 meter high hill, which starts with a journey of 700 steps, stands a pagoda and three natural caves, Pkasla, Lakhaon and Aksopheak. You can of course cheat and take a moto taxi, or bring your own bike for a journey up the concrete road.
Pkasla cave is full of uprooted stones and is considered important because it is where Phnom Sampeou come to celebrate their weddings. Some of these caves were used by the Khmer Rouge. The mountain was an important site for the battles between the Khmer Rouge and military forces in the 1980's. The legacy can be seen it the anti aircraft guns staged around the top of the mountain and in the fact that there are human remains. This being a product of the Khmer Rouge's murderous campaigns against their own Khmer people. There are shrines to the people that died here in the caves. These are the killing caves. Similar to many sites around Cambodia where the intelligent, artistic, scholars or just people that disagreed with the establishment ended up. Bullets being expensive, in this case they simply threw them down the cave to their deaths. In other parts of Cambodia, it was hammers, shovels or various other farming implements that dispatched there victims.
I seem to make references to the Khmer Rouge in many of my posts. Unfortunately in Cambodia their legacy still lives on in the country today. The mass killing of millions of people was devastating for this small SE Asian country. All families in this land were effected.
Phnom Sampeou rests on the northern end of the Dtam Rai (elephant) Mountains, which fall into the Gulf of Thailand. To the east you can see the Cardamon Mountains. In fact, from the top of this hill you get the sense of how flat the region is, but with these Rocky outcrops there comes the chance of mineral deposits.
A good time to visit this attraction is around 2 in the afternoon. Pay your tourist tax and hire a moto to take you up the mountain. I have explored the mountain on my own motor scooter, but always seem to end up getting slightly lost. After taking in the Killing caves, the pagoda and giant Buddha, where you have the chance to feed the wild monkeys, you can make your way down to the bat caves at the bottom. At dusk, millions of small bats come streaming out of the cave here in a steady stream towards the surrounding countryside. There they have a night of stuffing themselves with the local insects to look forward too.
Phnom Sampeou is a name that every Khmer will be familiar with, largely due to the legend of Rumsay Sok.
Pro tip if you decide to visit this lovely place. Don't stand under the stream of bats. You will think that is starting to rain ..... but the rain is of a more golden colour. A gift from the bats.
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