Blogs from Phnom Penh, South, Cambodia, Asia

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Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh March 9th 2024

Steph found an office for the bus company at the port and was able to secure a free transfer to the departure point. This worked well and we didn’t have long to wait for the bus to the capital Phnom Penh. It was a bit different from our recent forms of transport with reclining seats and a sandwich plus bottle of water for lunch. Another pleasant journey on decent roads through the Cambodian countryside spotting water buffalo and various types of birds. We arrived in the city near the palace and Moly a friendly driver offered to match the price of a Grab so we jumped into his tuk tuk. Our hotel was within walking distance of most of the important places and ,although it was very near to Pub Street, our room was thankfully at ... read more
Toll road
Change of landscape
Khmer Women Food restaurant

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh March 5th 2024

Heute verließen wir Vientiane mit dem Flugzeug in Richtung Phnom Penh. Dort war es gleich etwas heißer und schwüler. Wir besuchten eine Tanzschule und den Königspalast. Außerdem erfuhren wir vom kambodschanischen Reiseführer viel über die Geschichte des Landes.... read more
Der Königspalast in Phnom Penh.
Der Königspalast in Phnom Penh.
Besuch einer Tanzschule.

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh August 15th 2023

So enough with the sad stuff Cambodia, show me your awesome. Today I had booked a tour with an organisation called the Wildlife Alliance. The group gathered to meet Marie and Bort at 7.30. We all piled into a beautifully air-conditioned van and set off to the Phnom Tamao Zoo. The zoo itself is state owned but they work with NGO's like the Wildlife Alliance to run the rescue centre. Every animal here has had a bad luck story, which I am finding is typical in Cambodia. But inside the sadness you find the stories of these amazing peeps that overcome insurmountable hurdles to make the lives of these animals the best they can be Tamao Zoo is open range. It covers an area of 2300ha. About 100ha is dedicated to animal rehabilitation. They are not ... read more
Lucky an Mr Sareem
Chhouk getting his shoes on
Sun Bear

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh August 14th 2023

Today was the day for the sad stuff. The 2 sites on the agenda were S21 and Choeung Ek. For those that don't know about these places, S21 was a prison the Khmer Rouge used to interrogate their prisoners. Once they had the information they wanted, the prisoner was shipped off to Choeung Ek, the killing fields. So yeah, content warning S21 started its life as a highschool. In that capacity I imagine it was quite a lovely school. Three large 3 storey buildings surrounding beautiful green quads. But as Pol Pot disposed of all the schools. While he was educated in Paris, it was a privilege he wanted denied to most of his countrymen. Its not surprising really, he recruited his army from the rural areas. Young uneducated, disenfranchised youth. They were poor and they ... read more
S21
S21
Choeung Ek

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh August 13th 2023

This trip is started out bit differently to my other adventures. I usually try to arrange my flights so that I land in my destination city late afternoon. Giving me enough time to get to my hotel, have a shower, and then maybe head out to do a bit of exploring before dinner and crash out for the night. This time however, my flight left late Friday night and I arrived in Phnom Phen late Saturday morning. Check in isn't until 2 so I could only drop my bags at the hotel and then head out to explore the city still covered in the grime of a day's travel. No matter, I had 2 goals 1) find an ATM to pull out some Cambodian reels and 2) find a place to taste test the local beer ... read more
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Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh August 13th 2023

Today started out much better than yesterday. Its amazing what a good night sleep will do. I had arranged to meet up with my civicly minded Tuk tuk driver. Mr Vy (pronounced V) agreed to be my driver for the day, which is a whole lot easier than haggling with various tuk tuk drivers all day. We started our tour at the royal palace. A strange thing about Cambodia is the 2 currencies. Even in this government building the entry fee was in USD. I asked if I could pay in reils which was OK. But they definitly don't trust their own currency. I don't know if it's because reils aren't worth much, or because Pol Pot blew up the central bank and they didn't have a currency for a long time, but US$ are definitly ... read more
Royal Palace
Royal Palace
Mekong River

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh March 15th 2023

The AmaDara stopped in Phnom Penh - a very modern city with construction everywhere! It bears witness as to how far Vietnam has recovered since the war. Phnom Penh is home to many ex-pats from Australia, England, Europe and North America due to the low cost of living here. Lots of modern high rise condos are doting the 4 river intersection (the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers merge and split into the Basak and Mekong Rivers flowing south) that converges in this capital city! Home to the Parliament and the Royal Palace, there is so much to see and do here! We started with a visit to Wat Phnom Historical Site which is where the city gained its name. A wealthy woman (Lady Penh) in 1372, build a buddhist temple and a Pagoda on a man-made ... read more
Wat Phnom - Buddhist Temple
Wat Phnom - Buddhist Temple inside
Wat Phnom - Buddhist Temple worshipper

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh October 19th 2022

We sailed from Phnom Penh this morning with only seven couples remaining on board. Until our arrival in Phnom Penh our number had included a group of four people working in the travel industry who were invited on board to find out more about Pandaw so that they will, hopefully, promote their cruises to clients. There was also a group of six Vietnamese and I never quite established if they were also working in travel or if they were a group of family/friends. We also said farewell to Sarah from Sydney who only had a short break from work and could only do the short cruise and a rather strange Indian guy who only seemed to want to drink and smoke. Seriously, by 10.30am when we were out on our excursion yesterday he was desperate to ... read more
Silkworms
Silk cocoons on the sticks
Silk cocoons

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh October 18th 2022

We were up on the sun deck this morning just after 7.00am so that the immigration official could check our faces against our passports. The officer checking our faces actually had a sense of humour which is a most unusual trait amongst immigration officials! He looked at me, looked at my passport and announced ‘very beautiful’. Given that he also said this to Steve, he may not have been very discerning in regard to the standard of western feminine beauty, ha, ha, ha?? Anyhow, all of us were verified and cleared for entry to Cambodia. After breakfast we boarded cyclos for our ‘smoke free’ tour of Phnom Penh City and set off into the city with our Cambodian guide, Leng. Spelled Leng, but he pronounced his name as ‘Ling’ to my ear. Our itinerary said that ... read more
Ready, Set, Go
Wat Phnom Daun Penh
Wat Phnom Daun Penh

Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh February 27th 2022

My next big Trekkup trip was a cycling trip to Cambodia, including a visit to Angkor Wat, one of my big bucket list items. The Far East is only now just starting to open after two years of Covid restrictions and we were amongst the first tourists to visit this lovely country. It was pretty interesting to see how happy people were to see tourists again, which I am sure I'll mention a few times throughout my blogs. First - we had to get there. We weren't able to get our plane tickets until a couple of weeks before we left due to some restriction and flight changes. So, we wound up going through Singapore (via a vaccinated travel lane corridor, meaning you had to be vaccinated - indeed you had to be vaccinated to enter ... read more
Cloud 9 Sky Bar
Passion Fruit Mojito
Singapore airport




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