When traveling, it can sometimes be difficult to stay up-to-date with current events; however, when those events are happening in the same part of the world as my travels, all of the locals will be talking about them. This is true of the fighting occurring between Thailand and Cambodia over sacred temples near their border. [...]
“Nothing should be this beautiful. The gods are playing tricks on us. How could they be so cruel and still make the sky so lovely? I want to destroy all the beautiful things.” “The soldiers walked around the neighborhood, knocking on all the doors, telling people to leave. Those who refused were shot dead right [...]
Kampot and Kep are small adjacent towns near the southern beaches of Cambodia. Kampot has a population of around 40,000. The pace of life is slow and all the locals wear smiles. The weather changes from sun to rain and back again. And the tourists who choose to visit are mostly energetic to explore the [...]
Thanks to Nithya’s many weeks of consulting on the road, she had accumulated enough Starwood Hotel points to allow us to stay at Le Meridien near Angkor Wat. Best shower of the trip. There was strong pressure, constant hot temperatures, and of course great shampoo. But, I had gotten so used to staying at small [...]
Ponheary Ly, the sister of our Siem Reap guide Dara, is a CNN hero for her work in educating the under-served and orphaned youth of Cambodia. We had the opportunity to visit one of the schools supported by her foundation, the Ponheary Ly Foundation, between temples during our tour of Siem Reap. This is an [...]
Siem Reap is a city easy to travel because of its many tourist amenities. Delicious restaurants full of both Khmer and Western foods, Tuk Tuks ready to take us anywhere for a dollar or two, and English spoken everywhere. But the best example of Siem Reap’s tourist-friendly atmosphere is its Night Market. When I first [...]
Cambodian tourism is now synonymous with visiting Angkor Wat near Siem Reap, and that is where our Cambodian adventure properly began. Although Angkor was easily the most breathtaking, it is only one of hundreds of temples in Cambodia. The agenda for the two days that Nithya, Sangita and I stayed in Siem Reap was as [...]