Bat Cave, Phnom Sampeu, Battambang, Cambodia

In  2008 on the caving expedition to Cambodia, we spent time exploring and surveying caves in the Battambang area. The best known hill is Phnom Sampov (Sampeu). Phnom Sampeu is the famous hill which contains the killing caves and is on the tourist itinerary. It is a striking limestone outcrop with a wat on top.

Towards the end of a day spent surveying caves on the hill, we descended and had a look at the northern side, which is on the opposite side to the killing caves. Here we saw Bat Cave. 

 

In our reports, we called the cave La Ang Pracheu. Our description (from BHB 34) -  "Called “PSW4 (Million Bat Cave) by Herries (2006a). This cave is located at the base of Phnom Sampeu near to where an 18 m high Buddha is currently being carved out of the rock face. A steep 15 m climb is needed to reach the large cave mouth. However, a strong stench  of bat guano and the noise of the large bat colony successfully keeps explorers out of  the cave, which consequently remains unsurveyed."

Apparently the bats of Bat Cave have become a tourist attraction. The Khmer Times, 7 Jan 2004 has an article "Phnom Sampov bat cave attracting more tourists".  The article says that during the last months of 2023, more national and international tourists flocked to visit Phnom Sampov (Sampov mountain) bat cave in Battambang province. It goes on to say -

And a photo taken from the Khmer Times, AKP -

There are lots of photos of the bat flight on Trip Advisor.

To the right of Bat Cave, a large statue is being constructed (2008) -

I had seen the statue on a visit in 2004. In my diary, 4 Sept 2004, after visiting the caves up on the hill, I wrote "We began the long descent to the car park, using the 700 (?) stairs. This killed my poor knees. I went to look at the cliff face where they are just starting to carve a 38 m high Buddha. The mural will be 120 m long and will take 7 years to complete. Quite a feat. I had to give a donation. Women were manually breaking stones.

In 2008 I wrote in my diary "Bat Cave, this has the large entrance and is to the right of the new Buddha they are carving. There has not been much progress on this since my 2004 visit."

I googled the statue and 

Exclusive Cambodia Travel

Ret Bopha

There are hundreds more photos on the internet, especially on Google Maps, under Bat Cave Phnom Sampov.

References :

Berliner Höhlenkundliche Berichte BHB 34 (2009) Cambodia (Battambang) and its replacement BHB 77 (2019) Cambodia 1995/96–2017.

Herries, A. (2006a): Battambang Karst, North West Cambodia. – unpublished report, 11 p.

Herries, A. (2006b) Explorations in Cambodian Karst. Battambang Province, North West Cambodia. – SUSS Bull., 46 (2), 8-13; Sydney.

And my 2008 blog, Battambang Caves 1 - Phnom Sampeu 2008

Laang Spean archaeology, Battambang, Cambodia

The Khmer Times on 28 Feb 2018 announced that La’ang Spean or Cave of Bridges near Battambang would be excavated. This cave has already been well studied in the past.

Mentioned in the article is Heng Sophady, deputy director-general of the cultural heritage department at the Ministry of Culture. He joined us when we visited this cave as part of the 2008 caving expedition to Battambang. There are several photos of the cave on my page.

The Khmer Times article :

February 28, 2018

Ancient caves to be excavated and studied

Mom Kunthear / Khmer Times 

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and Battambang provincial authorities are cooperating with a working group from France to excavate La’ang Spean, known as the Cave of Bridges, in Ratanak Mondul district.

Heng Sophady, deputy director-general of the cultural heritage department at the Ministry of Culture, said yesterday that this is the tenth time the government has worked with the French since 2009 to excavate and study the 70,000 year old caves.

“For the excavating this year, we have experts to help that came from France, China, and also some Cambodian archaeologist students have joined,” he said.

Mr Sophady said that the excavation of Laang Spean is important to study the activity of ancestors who lived in the caves thousands of years ago.

“Previously, we found that there were three periods in which people occupied the caves, and during the last excavation, we also found six graves,” he said, noting the graves were at least 3,000 years old.

He added that any discoveries made would be put on display at the Battambang provincial museum.

“We will also make a book documenting all the excavations and the discoveries made during them,” he added. “In 2020 our work will be complete and the book will allow everyone to see what we accomplished.”

Battambang caves 10 - Kpg Poi lake area Pt 2

The next day we returned to Kpg Poi area. See the previous post.
Onto the wat, the 2 monks were our guides. It was very hot and sweaty walking to the monk cave. From there we cut across the hill. The first cave, La Ang Kachu, was in a closed depression, the walls were about 10m but an easy climb of about 4m took us to the bottom.

The cave has a concrete framed door and is only about 10m long. Going back up the climb, the monk hitched up his robes just as I was taking a photo!

We walked up the hill to the next cave, La Ang Konkromom, another climbable shaft. The 3rd cave La Ang Chiray was a large pothole with a large tree in it.

A man joined us and went down the tree into the cave, followed by one monk. Us cavers decided it was all too dangerous! The men came up a side wall using a thin pole. At the top the man lost one flip-flop down the hole, so he had to go back down the tree and up the pole again.

4th cave Prokui, was a small diameter 17m shaft (the monk said 30m). We walked past a couple of mounds of “glass stone”, i.e. calcite.

We passed more shafts before giving up for the day.





© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

Battambang caves 9 - Kpg Poi lake area Pt 1

As part of the Battambang caves expedition, we spent a couple of days caving near Kampong Poi lake. The lake was built by the Khmer Rouge and is now used to irrigate the rice fields.

We had earlier visited one hill before the lake.

We went past this hill and on to Kampong Poi dam and turned right and followed the lake, turning left at the end, and going to the wat at the foot of the hill.

There were rows of cycads (prong in Khmer) planted in the garden, they were collected from up on the hills. Cycads are often found on limestone areas.

For 2 hot and sweaty days, 2 monks took us to caves. The first cave, Laang Ampeau is basically a rock shelter, naga stairs lead down to the chamber. There is chert, and horizontal bedding.

We went up more stairs then cut across the hill. We looked at a pothole

The 2nd cave, La Ang Mombai, is 2 connecting shafts, about 9m deep. A young boy had joined us and he went down a thin pole into one shaft. The monks told him to go through to the connecting shaft. On the way back he damaged his head and one foot in the dark and started crying, so one monk had to go down and rescue him.

We went on and down to a Buddha cave, La Ang Chiray Preas,

Many people come here to see the monk. All the monks came in with us to see what we were doing.

There were a few bats at the end.

Next we went down the stairs to a lower cave, Laang Pech (Pich) or Gemstone Cave, also called Dragon or Elephant Cave. It’s a long chamber with a few bats, a nice crystal stal (hence the name),

There are lots of millipedes and I saw a large brown cricket.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

Battambang caves 8 - Banan area pt 3

The Banan area of Battambang, Cambodia has many caves. See other posts part 1 and part 2.

On the final day in this area, the teacher took us to an area to the right (west) of the main hill. 3 men and a dog joined us and we visited 5 caves, and the dog came in every cave.

Our guides

The first cave, Laang Roykun. It’s just one big chamber. In the entrance were 2 nice coloured drawings of Buddha, and also a rabbit, and then inside the cave, the teacher started to write his name and date on the wall in blue paint. I realised it was he who had drawn on of the Buddhas.

The school teacher carefully painted his name on the wall.

caving dog........... follow me

The next cave Laang Ptou is a tunnel through the hill

The dog waited patiently whilst we were surveying

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

Battambang caves 7 - Banan area pt 2

This is the 2nd part on the Banan area, see part 1.

We returned to the Banan area for the 3rd day. At Phnom Banan we got 2 guides and set off with a black dog. We walked uphill to Laang Trao on Phnom Banan.

The cave entrance leads to one large chamber, with a broken ladder at the top. The dog got bored and went home.

From here we went back down to the main track, then along a mostly flat path to a cave that was full of bats. At first it looked like a cavity in a rift but a passage lead into the main cave.

there were lots of roots hanging down

Cave entrance

We went to a 3rd cave which was the biggest of the day. A large entrance chamber,

main way on is to the left, a series of rift passages. Nice cave, lots of incense sticks everywhere and in one place a flat area had dozens of little mounds of

sand topped by an incense stick, made as an offering to the gods especially at Khmer New Year, something to do with the fact that the grains of sand can’t be counted. People use homemade kerosene bottle lamps, as well as burning attap roof sheets.
There were some impressive tree roots in the cave

and a nice calcite flow

The next day we went back to the school teacher’s place.

We discussed caves, then 3 kids and a dog took us to a foothill cave on the left side of the hill.

Steps led down to a rift, there was some ‘cave cancer’

and lots of incense sticks and offerings.

Nice cave. Huge whip spiders, few crickets and bats. Nice formations, a large upper chamber.

That was all for that day, we would return the next.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission