Story Archives

Cambodia Travel Stories

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: A Banquet For Phnom Penh's Rubbish Dump Residents
- Story by David Calleja
- 11th Online Issue

My message is attempting to tell everybody to please make two lines. The limits of my Khmer are obvious to everybody in earshot, but even in a time of crisis, I am still able to obtain laughter from those who seek another type of medicine.

This is Stueng Meanchey, Phnom Penh’s Waste Dump. I am one of four frontline feeders, handing out packages of baguettes, mandarins and bananas to the outstretched hands, hats and cupped t-shirts of boys and girls, men and women. There are three other men helping me, each trying to keep their lines in order as I am. My journey for the day has taken me through an open market in Phnom Penh to shop for bread and fruit, taking a hands-on role of preparing a care package on the truck (the second row feeders) to hand to anyone strong enough to hand out food at the coalface (front row feeders.) I found out about this experience by seeing a laminated flyer behind some deodorant at a small grocery store in Phnom Penh, unsure what to expect for my fifteen dollars, apart from a warning of ‘seeing some distressing scenery’.

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Siem Reap, Cambodia: The Wonders and Warmth of Siem Reap - Story by Jason Gaskell, Msc.
- 11th Online Issue

Siem Reap, Cambodia is unique. That I can say.

The city (more of a town really) is divided by the Siem Reap River, which eventually leads to Tonie Sap Lake – a lake that is populated by locals who have constructed a floating village complete with farms, schools, houses and restaurants.

I met a guide, Vannie, who took me to the floating village and the reality is even more fantastical than reading about it. I saw children rowing boats to school, a young girl holding a snake bigger than her for the tourists to see, a pig farm (yes – pigs on water!), and a whole cluster of houses complete with gardens floating in the centre of the vast lake. A fully functional village on a lake! Images of Kevin Costner in Waterworld come instantly to mind. It is a whole other world.

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Siem Reap, Cambodia: Siem Reap, Cambodia - Travel Story by Betsy Campo
- 7th Online Issue

Cambodia: the name alone evokes an array of images. Our largely American entourage had many notions of what to expect – a vague familiarity with its past struggles, nightmarish visions of Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge regime, Dith Pran's Killing Fields, piles of skulls, suffering and poverty. We saw the aftermath of this... and more. As a parade of temples, villages, people and experiences were presented to us in the coming days, we were all left dazed by the compelling dichotomy of Cambodia.

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia: The Hill of Penh - Travel Story by Doreen Pon
- 7th Online Issue

Words like “dangerous”, “dilapidated”, and “depressing” tend to creep into most descriptions of Phnom Penh, the much maligned capital of Cambodia. Almost 30 years of brutal civil war and political turmoil have left this former jewel of French Indochina with both physical and psychological scars. But like all survivors, Phnom Penh has a message to share and a lesson to teach to all travelers who stay long enough to listen.

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Strung Strang, Cambodia: "Young Female, Traveling Alone" - Travel Story by Manuela Pop
- 5th Online Issue

“How much to cross over to Strung Strang?” I asked the Cambodian man.

“Fifty dollars,” he quickly replied.

“Fifty dollars? That’s way too much. How about thirty for both of us?”

I had met Esther, a young Israeli girl, on Don Det, an island in the Four Thousand Islands region south of Laos. She was traveling with a group of Israelis through Asia. We were going to travel together through Cambodia.

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia: “Yes, Yes" - Travel Story by Gregory McElwain
- 3rd Online Issue

In Phnom Penh, taxis were scarce and reserved for luggage-laden rides to the airport or day trips to far-flung sites, making the ubiquitous moto, the local Frenchified slang for motorcycle, the vehicle of choice for short runs around the city. Upon seeing a bumbling foreigner on a street, anyone driving a moto could suddenly transform himself into a purveyor of public transport.

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