Advertisement
Published: January 17th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Negotiate a river by following its bends, enter a country by following its customs... ~ Cambodian Proverb
Sua s'dei people!
It’s a new adventure for the new year. Tomorrow we’ll be travelling to Cambodia for a few weeks!
We predicted that 2013 was going to be a very busy year, so we decided to sneak in a quick trip before the year got away from us. We booked this trip a while ago, and even though we have been counting down the days and preparing for it for a few months now; it has still managed to sneak up on us. The bushfires that recently hit Tasmania and a dog’s injury that required multiple trips to the animal hospital seriously sidetracked a few things on our schedule in the last two weeks – and we’ve barely managed to catch up in time for the trip. There is still a fire danger (albeit much lower than it was) for the area, so we leave with a bit of trepidation. Fingers crossed for cooler and wetter weather conditions for Tasmania.
Technically this is Ren’s second trip to Cambodia, however seeing as the first trip was only to Siem Reap and the Angkor temples, this will be the first trip to the real Cambodia outside
the tourist trail. Andrew is very much looking forward to visiting Cambodia and being in Asia again.
Neither of us have much of an understanding of Cambodian food or culture, which makes us even more excited about this trip! However the lack of a visible Cambodian presence in our immigrant communities (and thus in our restaurant scene) has made us question why Cambodians are so underrepresented in Australia compared to their South East Asian neighbours. We also had unexpected difficulty tracking down any Cambodian films, so it appears the Khmer Rouge did a thorough job stamping out the film industry.
Here is a quick snapshot of Cambodia (the Kingdom of Wonder): with a population of just over 14 million, the capital is Phnom Penh, the language is Khmer and the currency is Riel (but US dollars are used for most transactions).
If you followed us on our Thailand trip in 2011, you may remember our South African/English friends Kim and Lee who travelled with us in Northern Thailand. We are very thrilled to be travelling with them again, it should be heaps of fun! Stay tuned for travel reports on the Cambodian people, Khmer food, Angkorian temples,
complex old Khmer history, more brutal recent Cambodian history, and modern day Cambodia in general.
If you received notification of this blog post via a subscription email, and no longer wish to do so – please feel free to unsubscribe (via the link on the email). Conversely if you are interested in this trip,
click here to subscribe and receive an email alert whenever we add a new entry. If you are a travel blog member, you also have the option of clicking on the ‘Follow’ button on our profile. As with our previous blogs, we will upload some photos here but ‘people’ pictures will be on our facebook pages.
We just checked the weather in Phnom Penh – 28 degrees and 42% humidity! After the scorching 40 degree weather we’ve just had, that sounds like perfect tshirt and cocktail weather to us. 😊
Are we excited you ask? Just a little bit!
Ren and Andrew
Films that set the scene for this trip... The Killing Fields, directed by Roland Joffe (1984); and
Luke Nguyen’s Greater Mekong series (2012) – ok it’s a travel foodie show and not a film, but it was very good!
Travel reading on this trip... Lonely Planet Guide Cambodia;
First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (Andrew);
Lucky Child by Loung Ung (Ren).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.567s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 45; qc: 173; dbt: 0.2247s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 2mb
Dotti
non-member comment
Trip to the Real Cambodia
Hi Ren and Andrew, so looking forward to following your experience of the sights and sounds, and just as important the cuisine of Cambodia.All the best and wishing you many marvellous adventures on this special trip.