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When Matthew Trew, a Canadian raised in South Carolina, was twenty-two, he took a bus north-westward from Phnom Penh to Battambang. It was 2009 and, though Trew had never been to Cambodia, he had just finished a master’s program at the University of Toronto, where he learned Khmer. With paltry funds and no plans, he had bought a one-way air ticket; the important thing was being there. But he despised the dusty bustle of the capital and, on one of his first days in country, opted for a quick getaway.

Skilled in Khmer — good enough to casually read a book —Trew hooked the attention of a fellow passenger on the bus. “He started asking me all these questions: ‘Why do you know this language?’ ‘Are you CIA?’ (which is still a question I get a lot). I told him, ‘No, I’m an anthropologist’.”

The stranger said that his friend taught at a university in Battambang and was seeking an instructor in cultural studies. On the bus the stranger made a call to his friend, who told Trew to come by for an interview. “I was like, ‘Ok, I’m gonna totally get robbed but what the hell’.” But it wasn’t a scam: that night Trew visited the school and was signed on the spot. He taught there for nearly a year before returning to the United States, for a PhD program at the University of Wisconsin. But he had fallen in love with Battambang. “This is part of the reason why, when people say, ‘Why do you work in Cambodia?’ my response is usually ‘Destiny’. Weird things like that just happen in Cambodia. Things just happen where it works out.”

We were speaking on the grounds of Chan Thay Chhoueng, a small Battambang winery, around noon. There was twinkling music, birdsong, the bubbly whir from a fountain. It is the only vineyard in the country. Battambang is full of peculiarities, and Trew takes great pleasure in revealing them.

• Tags: Battambang, Brent Crane, Issue 9, Matthew Trew