I loved Kampot and Kep. They have that kind of faded grandeur that I particularly enjoy. Kampot used to be the primary port until Sihannoukville took over, leaving it to drop quietly off the radar. Aside from the lovely colonial architecture and the chilled out riverine way of life, the primary attraction is Bokor Hill Station. This was established as hilltop retreat for the French, a cool and breezy escape from the tropical heat. There was a casino, a hotel, a church, a holiday villa for the king and a multitude of other buildings, all now long abandoned. If you can [View Full Entry]

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Ko Kong sounded so promising. It was supposed to be an area of fantastic natural beauty, just opening up to ecotourism. For some time it has been notable only as a border town, used as a stopover by tourists entering Cambodia by land and Thailand expats on visa runs. According to the guidebooks I read, its fortunes were on the up. Numerous ecotourism operations were for alleged to be setting up in the area, and the books confidently stated that by the time of going to press there will be a variety of exciting trips and activities available. It looks like [View Full Entry]

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Sihannoukville is Cambodia’s premier beach resort, named for the notorious Prince / King / Former President Sihannouk, who after an extremely colourful career is now living in exile in China. An NGO worker in Phnom Penh described it as ‘like the Costa Del Sol but with paedophiles’. And yet still I came. Not sure why, morbid curiosity probably. I didn’t really know what to make of the place. I suppose in many ways it was a bit of a shithole. The beaches could have been as pretty as Thailand’s, had they been cared for properly. Instead they are dirty and crammed [View Full Entry]

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Advice to travellers! If you sustain any injury more serious than a papercut, demand medical evacuation to Bangkok. I don’t know what the hospitals in Phnom Penh and Siem Riep are like, but in the provinces the situation is not great. I literally could not believe it when they told me they perform surgery at the hospital in Kampong Thom. How? It’s tiny. There’s no glass in the windows. The electricity goes off three times a day. There is a small herd of cows outside A&E. When I walked past this morning I saw a guy getting on a motorbike with [View Full Entry]

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I wrote all this ages ago and have been carrying it around on my laptop without getting around to uploading. I'm trying to get it all out of the way now in one big update binge. So I am going to regale you with more amusing anecdotes from my project. After this I promise I will NEVER talk about it ever again. I have been several times to see a mindbogglingly weird Medium who is in the process of building a number of vast, golden galleons out in the middle of nowhere. When I questioned him as to what the hell [View Full Entry]

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I found it really hard to leave Kampong Thom. I went eventually when my visa was about to expire, I had to go back to Phnom Penh to get it renewed and this gave me the impetus I needed to escape. Everybody seemed to want me to stay, which was weird since I really wasn’t doing anything useful. It surprised me how quickly I got used to the routine and the pace of life. I really felt like I’d been there forever. After a couple of weeks I adopted some English classes to teach. This was much more challenging than the [View Full Entry]

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I’m sat in one of the expat cafes in Phnom Penh, typing away on my laptop, imagining I fit in here. I’m enjoying it. The place is full of NGO workers and everyone is talking loudly into their blackberries about government policy, development and general do-gooding. I like pretending to be one of them. Only my laptop is covered in duct tape and the battery doesn’t work so I can’t move more than three feet from a plug socket. They keep looking at me funny. I think they suspect I don’t belong. Infuriatingly, my WIFI card is knackered, so I’ll have [View Full Entry]

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I am back in Phnom Penh! My research is all done. Sixteen interviews in total. Look at me, doing more than the bare minimum! I’ve had most of the write up done for a while, but was waiting to return to the relative civilisation of Phnom Penh, joyous land of internet access, to look some stuff up online and fill in the gaps. Now I have no excuse not to get it done so I’m aiming to finish tomorrow. I will need to move to a better guest house though. The two dollar room I am in has only one plug [View Full Entry]

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I haven’t done anything worth reporting since I got back from Siem Riep. There was some brief excitement when we received a visit from one of the Phnom Penh psychiatrists and some Belgian women whose function I could not ascertain. They took me melon shopping (a delicate art, I can now identify a good watermelon by how it sounds) and out for dinner, where I was fed mixed ants and something that was apparently either lung or pancreas. Considering one of them was a doctor I was disturbed by their inability to identify the bodypart we were eating. The ants are [View Full Entry]

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Sunnari was away in Battambang from Friday to Tuesday last week. Given that he is the only one who really speaks English, my continued presence over the weekend would have been somewhat pointless, so I was allowed four days off to go to Siem Riep. Awesome. Despite the fact that it is easier, cheaper and faster to get to Battambang via Phnom Penh, Sunnari insisted on accompanying me on the bus to Siem Riep. He is quite protective, possibly because he would be in trouble with head office if I were to become lost or broken. I have been wanting to [View Full Entry]

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