Your tuk tuk driver for Angkor Wat and Siem Reap

Ten tips on visiting the temples of Angkor

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +0000

One of the things our guests really appreciate is Savuth's skills in itinerary planning. We get so many comments about how Savuth knows the best times to see which temples and in which order to maximize one's time and pleasure in avoiding the crowds to the extent possible. Unfortunately, not everyone uses Savuth as their tuk tuk driver. Here's a great recent article with ten tips on how to get the most out of visiting the temples. An excerpt:

1 High season runs from November to March, when the weather is usually fair. Late October and November, the country is still lush after the rains and there are fewer tourists.

2 Wear comfortable shoes with good soles; the paving at the temples is uneven and slippery when wet. Take an umbrella against the rain/sun. A torch is useful for windowless rooms.

3 Have a basic understanding of Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism. Most guidebooks have a section on this subject. A good map is available at local bookshops in Siem Reap (they do not have one at the ticket office).

You can read the full article here at The Telegraph.

(Thinking of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat? Don’t forget to check out my friend Savuth’s tuk tuk services and all the handy information available on Angkortuktuk.)

Cambodia: A good primer for first-time travelers

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:17:00 +0000

I recently came across this good article in the UK's Telegraph newspaper:

Cambodia: a country with its eye on the past: Clover Stroud revels in the colour, energy and optimism of modern Cambodia, but also discovers a country where few people remain unaffected by its recent history.

"Children are playing basketball in the water. In a caged court on a lake, they dance with the ball, slamming it into the wire walls encasing them. A boat bobs alongside, its driver shouting to the children. They thrust hands out for cartons of mango juice which he exchanges for sweaty coins. I've never seen a basketball court on water, but this is Cambodia and it's one of many things in the country that opens my eyes..."

You can read the full article here.

(Thinking of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat? Don’t forget to check out my friend Savuth’s tuk tuk services and all the handy information available on Angkortuktuk.)

Launch of Anjali House Photo Book

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:15:00 +0000

One of the highlights of this year's Angkor Photo Festival is the official launch of the beautifully executed photo book "Cambodia - Our Vision" from the kids at Anjali House. Anjali provides refuge, care and education for nearly 80 under-privileged children between the ages of 4 and 16 years old.

I have always been a strong believer in the curative and developmental power of art, creativity and imagination for anyone but especially for children. Seeing the world through children's eyes is always a fascinating journey and these photographs from the Anjali kids will not disappoint. They are powerful and emotive images of their lives.

Check out Anjali's website for more information or download Anjali House's "Cambodia, Our Vision" - the brochure about the book. Anjali's website has a great store section where you can order prints from the book, post card sets from the various young photographer's and some other kit for yourself or vital stuff for the kids at the house. I was lucky enough this morning to run into some of Anjali's youngsters this morning at the Blue Pumpkin Cafe here in Siem Reap. What a great bunch of kids who have come so far from such difficult circumstances. They deserve your support.

If you are in town from November 20 - 27 check out all the great stuff, including the Anjali book, at this year's Angkor Photo Festival. If you can't be there, check out the Anjali stuff and maybe order something for yourself, for some lucky child in your life or help out the house itself in fulfilling its mission. You'll be glad you did!

Siem Reap Fun Fair

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:40:00 +0000

Last night after hanging out a bit at Savuth's house we decided to head out to the local Siem Reap fun fair. Seeing the pure joy of a kid during a rare visit to a fun fair has got to be one of life's better and more simple pleasures. The picture doesn't do it justice as it was a pretty major affair. Lots of rides, plenty of food stalls and dozens if not hundreds of stalls selling everything from shoes to handbags to household accessories and more. The rides are quite simple, unsophisticated and would never qualify for liability insurance in the west but that does not have any negative impact on the joy and fun-factor for the kids. In some ways, the simple nature of it all creates a powerful back to basics type of pure fun that we no longer experience or perhaps appreciate with our high-tech, high-polish, super-sized lifestyle.

It was also a bit funny watching them initially struggle to eat their first-ever pizza slices with a plastic fork and knife which I think they associate with western food as a matter of fact. After a few minutes of observing their most valiant efforts, I decided that this was perhaps a moment when it would be appropriate to share some western wisdom.

After all, I was a university graduate with 6 years experience eating pizza and drinking beer, I mean studying, so I had been privileged to learn all the common and even more complex techniques of pizza consumption. For example, the 'one-handed-sea-lion-feed' for those slices where the toppings are more solidly fixed to the pizza surface or the two-handed 'pizza-point-thumb-support' technique for slices with heavier toppings where the point of the pizza becomes dangerously unstable and needs to be fed, conveyor-belt like, into the mouth.

We were very lucky in this case as the fun fair pizza slices were perfect for young Cambodian beginners: not too long from rear arc to front tip with the perfect relative dimensions of length-to-arc-to-thickness-to-weight, a thick and non-bendy crust and solidly embedded toppings under, not over, a fair amount of a non-runny cheesy cement-like covering.

After demonstrating the two-handed 'pizza-point-thumb-support' technique I realized there was an even better technique for these enthusiastic pizza disciples. Yes, without design or intention, this Cambodian fun fair pizza entrepreneur had created the perfect pizza for the very rare yet simple '2-handed-sandwich-grip' where one holds the slice on both sides at its widest rear point as one would hold a sandwich. The triangle and point of the slice remain stiff as a board and one can then take bites from the slice without much difficult positioning or mouth maneuvering. Somehow something got lost in the translation and a great deal of the pizzas still ended up on the mat anyways. But there was a lot of laughing so I think everyone enjoyed the experience.

After the pizza we went to one of the new modern ice cream parlors in town which was a real special first-time treat for the kids. Swenson's ice cream is in a small modern-style multi-level shopping mall near the Old Market. I had the most fun going up and down the escalators with the kids who seemed to be somewhere in that nexus of amazement, entertainment and terror.

The best ice cream eating moment was when Vannath bravely popped the maraschino cherry in his mouth with the expected result of painful comedic grimace, gagging and spitting as he desperately tried to get it out of his mouth. And as suits all kids, after the fun fair, the pizza, the escalators and the ice cream they were happy and exhausted and we only had one case of tummy ache.

Here you can see the entire album of this evening's fun!

Fun fair, pizza and ice cream

Ponheary Ly Foundation and Koh Ker - Part 1

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Whenever I come visit Cambodia, some of my friends back home collect a bit of money to support one of the projects here that is near and dear to my heart. This year I used the money to help a small, independent and fantastic charity I have known here since 2007 called the Ponheary Ly Foundation. For some more info about them you can check out the bit I wrote last year when visiting: "Education is the Sweetest Revenge."

We earmarked the money to provide a hot lunch to the nearly 200 primary school students of the very rural and very poor Koh Ker community. This is a school that is pretty much run by the Ponheary Ly Foundation since 2006. Koh Ker is the site of the ruins of one of the capital cities of the ancient Angkor empire. Due to its 100 km distance from Siem Reap, the tourist town serving the main temples of Angkor Wat, it gets almost no tourists and enjoys no development.

View my docu-video report of the visit on Youtube

Koh Ker village was established in 1979 after the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge from power. This part of northern Cambodia was one of the Khmer Rouge's last holdouts. When established, the village became home to transient war victims: returning refugees who had fled to the northern border with Thailand, those who had survived wandering in the area's jungles for several years or people who were lucky enough to outlive their torturous Khmer Rouge servitude.

Even up to the mid to late 90's, these people continued to suffer while two simultaneous wars waged around them: one between the post-Khmer Rouge Cambodian government and the Vietnamese army who remained after driving the Khmer Rouge from power and the last remnants of internal civil war between Cambodia and the dying Khmer Rouge movement. And once in a while, until not so long ago I was told, people would sometimes still appear from the jungles asking if the wars were over.

The net effect of Cambodia's tortured modern history was the total destruction of the nation's social fabric and economic infrastructure. The Khmer Rouge also saw to the extermination of the administrative and educated classes along with the essential social and governmental institutions that such people run in any country.

Koh Ker is a village of people who are all deeply suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Living through three decades of three brutal wars and the only case in modern history of wide-spread auto-genocide left many of Koh Ker's residents with severe psychological and emotional problems as well as widespread alcohol and drug addiction.

Ponheary Ly made education in Koh Ker her personal crusade even before the formal founding of the foundation that bears her name. The Foundation began supporting this school in 2006. When they began there were, on a good day, 40 to 50 students out of a possible 200. Most parents could not afford the minimal annual contribution of $40 - $50 needed to keep a child enrolled in a government school. And even if money were not the problem, most parents could not see any reason why their kids should even be educated, certainly not beyond the 3rd grade which didn't even exist back then at the school. And if that weren't enough, the kids were desperately needed as working family members - in the rice fields, foraging for fire wood or edibles in the forests or watching after the babies.

When the Foundation decided to make a change in Koh Ker, they found that 65% of the kids in the village were seriously ill with all kinds of terrible and often life-threatening conditions mostly due to malnutrition, filthy contaminated water, neglect and abuse.

Today, barely four years later, the school has 200 students in grades 1- 6; the first graduates - nine girls - have moved on to secondary school (grades 7 - 9); the kids are voracious and eager learners who gladly give up summer vacation to attend school year-round; they finally have those incredibly endearing smiles that children are supposed to have; they have access to clean water and breakfast in the morning; there is a doctor on staff to provide the medical care possible within the limits of budget and accessibility to equipment and medicine; sometimes dangerously ill children even now get life-saving care in district or regional hospitals; there are dedicated and caring teachers.

And sometimes, someone or some group of people, people like my friends back home, make it possible for the kids to get an extra meal - a hot, nourishing, tasty and abundant meal that is consumed with an eagerness and joy we would reserve for the mythical elixer of life itself. Which for them it basically is.

All this thanks to the inspired, tireless and dedicated work of the Ponheary Ly Foundation, its staff and supporters. Amazing respect is due to the kids themselves. Their desire and struggle to learn in living conditions that for us in the West can only be described, literally described, as unimaginable is a true inspiration.

Spending a day with these kids was a privilege. Serving them was an honor. Being touched by their indomitable spirits was a humbling experience. I will never ever forget this day.

I want to thank my friends on behalf of all the people at the Foundation but mostly on behalf of 200 beautiful, wonderful and deserving kids. I also want to thank them for enabling me to be their emissary on this mission of service, to be their eyes and ears and to be their helping hands.

This is part 1. In a few days I will finish with some more stories, pictures and videos of how the rest of the day went.

Here we go again!

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:28:00 +0000

Getting really psyched for my next trip to the places and people I love so much!

The initial itinerary looks like this:

Oct 24 fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; overnight at airport

Oct 26 fly to Vientiane, Laos; overnight there

Oct 27 fly to Luang Prabang, Laos

Nov 1 fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia

Nov 12 ten - twelve hours by road to Kep, Cambodia

Nov 17 fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Nov 21 fly to Amsterdam

(Thinking of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat? Don’t forget to check out my friend Savuth’s tuk tuk services and all the handy information available on our website Angkortuktuk).

Angkor Photo Festival 2010 - Schedule of Events

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:27:00 +0000

I woke up this morning to find I had received the press kit with the full schedule of events for this year's Angkor Photo Festival. Thank you Camille Plante!

If you are going to be in Siem Reap between November 20 - 27 you have got to check out this fantastic photography festival. (At the end of the article you will find a link to directly download the press kit which contains a complete day by day schedule.) You will find 10 indoor and 4 outdoor exhibitions at some of Siem Reap's marquee locations such as Hotel de la Paix's Arts Lounge, the McDermott Gallery, Angkor Photo Gallery, Angkor Hospital for Children, Blue Pumpkin Cafe, Raffles' Garden and FCC Angkor. There will also be evening slide shows, events for children and of course the annual tie-in with the fantastic Anjali House for at-risk children. You will have the opportunity to see works from 110 photographers, including 50 from Asia encompassing fascinating themes from across the broader Asian continent.

As I read through the program I am once again sad and disappointed that my annual visit to Siem Reap comes to an end just a few days before the festival takes place. It looks like it is going to be a fantastic event. For those not familiar with this sixth edition of what has become an important annual event, let me bring you up to speed with an excerpt from the press kit's introduction:

"Created in 2oo5, the Angkor Photo Festival is the first such event to be organized in Southeast Asia. Each year, and for a week, the festival showcases exhibitions and outdoor slideshows by celebrating international and emerging Asian photographers’ works in Siem Reap. The temples of Angkor become a hub that draws both famous and passionate photographers from around the world in creativity and sharing spirit. The strong educational goals of the Angkor Photo Festival set it apart from other photography events. During their stay, famous photographers tutor Angkor Photo Workshops for emerging Asian photographers and the festival also presents its outreach programs Anjali Children’s Photo Workshops."

Click HERE to download the presskit with the full schedule of events.

(Thinking of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat? Don’t forget to check out my friend Savuth’s tuk tuk services and all the handy information available on our website Angkortuktuk).

Angkor Photo Festival 2010

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:57:00 +0000

If you're going to be in Siem Reap between November 20 - 27 you may want to make a note of the sixth annual Angkor Photo Festival that will be taking place in that week. From the organization's website:

"Created in 2005, the Angkor Photo Festival is the first such event to be organized in South-east Asia. The festival’s 2010 program will present works photographed around the world through exhibitions and outdoor slideshows in different locations in Siem Reap. This is consistent with the festival’s mission of highlighting emerging South-east Asian photographers. The strong educational goals of the Angkor Photo Festival set it apart from other photography events. During their stay, international reknowed photographers tutored free workshops for emerging Asian photographers and young Asian photographers supervise photo workshops for Anjali children's project. All events from the festival are entirely FREE OF CHARGE!"

There will be exhibitions, evening outdoor slideshows, events for children and the launch of Anjali House's photo book of pictures taken by Anjali House's former street kids. I hope to have the full schedule of events posted on the weblog as soon as it is available from the organization.

UPDATE: The catalogue of some of the fantastic photos from the new Anjali House photo book is now available.

(Thinking of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat? Don’t forget to check out my friend Savuth’s tuk tuk services and all the handy information available on our website Angkortuktuk).

Thru Children's Eyes

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:52:00 +0000

Last week there was an unusual event in London that featured the photography work of children from Anjali House in Siem Reap. From the Phnom Penh Post:

"Photographs taken by former street children from Anjali House formed part of the backdrop for a book launch in London last night. Projections of the children’s work accompanied author Sue Guiney’s reading of her newly published novel, A Clash of Innocents (Ward Wood Publishing), at the launch at Asia House in fashionable Fitzrovia near Regent’s Park."

The book, set in Cambodia is, “the heart-warming story of the indomitable Deborah, who runs an orphanage and fights with her own demons as the country struggles to come to terms with its bloody history”. Photographs taken by the children formed the background for the book launch.

The photography display was itself a pre-launch event for the upcoming photo book "Cambodia: Our Vision" which is made up of images taken by the children of Anjali House.

I too have always been fascinated by the things children photograph when given a camera and let loose in their own world. Last year, I gave cameras the three older children in a family I am close to in Siem Reap who live in a village outside of the city. I was quite impressed by the results which you can see in this album.

The launch of the Anjali book will take place during this year's annual Angkor Photo Festival. More on the festival will follow in a day in two so watch this space.

Lori's Guide to Good Eats

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:34:00 +0000

Siem Reap has an incredible selection of restaurants both in terms of variety, price class and of course quality. Here's a list of favorites from Lori Carlson who is one of my favorite people in Siem Reap.

Lori is the co-founder and President of the Ponheary Ly Foundation, one of Siem Reap's finest small and innovative NGO's. For more about the great work of the foundation you can check out my personal account of some time I spent with the incredible Ponheary Ly.

Lori's picks span the price range from cheap to expensive and are mostly in the Wat Bo area of town where Seven Candles Guesthouse is located. Seven Candles is the Ly family home annex wonderful guesthouse annex foundation headquarters.

At the bottom find a link to download the whole list in pdf format so you can easily take it with you!

Lori's Guide to Good Eats

You can eat anything at these places without gastronomical consequences. They are tried and true. Eat the meat, eat the vegetables even if they are raw, try the frogs, have a shake, chomp the ice, it’s all good. Most of the food in Siem Reap is pretty safe these days; the days of amoebic dysentery for lunch are almost behind us. Your own dirty hands are probably your biggest threat.

Be patient with the staff, especially in the local places. They will bring the menu and then stand there, bored and impatient, until you’re ready to order. Just take your time. They will not bring the food all at once. They will bring it one dish at a time, so either eat Cambodian (family) style or don’t wait for your dining companions to get their food before digging into yours.

In local places, once they bring your food, they will never come to your table again until you call them. If you need some- thing and can’t catch their eye, just raise your arm and sort of flap your hand around until they come.

If you want your bill, you can make the universal gesture for “the check” or say “kut luey” and they will come collect. Don’t be freaked out by lots of trash lying underfoot. Locals throw their napkins, chicken bones, empty beer bottles, etc under the table for clean up later. Big piles of trash = lots of people eat there = the food is probably good. Everybody does “take away” and is happy to deliver for an extra buck or so.

Price per person without drinks:

$ less than $5

$$ $5-10

$$$ $10-15

$$$$ over $15

* signifies in the neighborhood of Seven Candles

Irrawaddi

$* Perfect Burmese food. Really good, simple and very flavorful. This is my current favorite Hole-In-the-Wall. Whatever you have, make sure you also try the Tea Leaf Salad. Just about everything on the menu is less than $2 a plate, so try a few different things. The owner ChoCho, has been in Cambodia for 6 years and is a warm and engaging hostess. If you’re not sure what to order, just tell her to “bring you something good”. She’ll fix you right up. Take out also available.

Home Cocktail

$*A wide range of inexpensive Cambodian and Western food including set menus. Really good western breakfast including cappuccino! Home Cocktail does great takeaway if you want to eat at home. It’s room service, Cambodian style. Home Cocktail is also an excellent place to just relax with a cool drink, they’ve got the coldest, cheapest beer in the hood.. 012 682 385 6:30 am -late

Selantra

$-$$ * On Wat Bo Road, just down the street from the swarm of tour buses at Viroth’s. (Sorry, Viroths has fallen off my list). Coffee presses and cappuccino, ahhh. Paninis, organic salads, a mile long list of “lite bites” to be shared. For dinner, pasta dishes compete with Brazilian steak and Duck, fish dishes and local specialties. The amok her is my favorite in the city, but it takes about 15 minutes to prepare it soe have an appetizer and wait it out. It’s worth it. Everything well prepared and very fresh, lovely atmosphere, attentive service, which is a novelty here. Imagina- tive wine list, good cocktails, interesting shake selections, excellent happy hour deals. I can’t push this place hard enough.

Touich Restaurant

$-$$ Quickly becoming a fave. The pork chop is stupidly good. To save me a lot of typing, just read this review

Picasso’s

$-$$ A couple of expat restaurateurs have joined forces to bring a true tapas bar to the Passage. It’s up near Samot between the video store and an excellent new shop called Poetry. A cozy little spot with a big horseshoe shaped bar; everyone bellies up making the conversation easy. Great house wines and cavas, sangria and an excellent selection of adult beverages. The Picasso plate, for $6 can be shared by two, warm crispy bread with sausage, jamon, goat cheese, olives. SO civilized. Cigars, good music, perfect service, lively conversation. Not a restaurant, but such a great place to pop in for a libation and snacks on a rainy afternoon, especially if you’ve got a jones for some warm bread and cheese with a nice glass of red.

The BBQ places behind Wat Damnak

$For the adventurous eater: Any tuk tuk driver will know where this place is, but be sure to say “BeeBeeQue” No one knows the term BARBeeQue. It’s on the east river road, behind Wat Damnak. There’s a row of outdoor stands grilling meat. At night, you can smell the searing flesh from 500 meters so that helps make it easy to find. Among the stalls is a proper restaurant. I have no idea what the name of it is, but it’s the only place that looks like a restaurant, rather than a food stall. The menu is lengthy and full of things that you might not find edible, but the grilled beef with some steamed rice and all the magnificent sauces is just perfect and so cheap. Chances are good you’ll be the only foreigner there, but they do have two menus in English. Just reading the menu is worth the visit. Last trip there I had the “Cow gender with red ant sauce”. I thought “perhaps it’s a bad translation”, but no, that’s exactly what it was. And it was tasty.

Abacus

$$-$$$ This is one of my top three places in town. Really nicely done French/ Khmer fusion and possibly the best burger on the planet which can easily be shared. Highly recommend the duck dish and the creme brulée, well it’s worth your airfare to Cambodia. Very well manicured wine list. Lunch and dinner are served in air conditioned comfort. Well trained wait staff. At dinner, the outdoor candlelit garden is particularly enjoy- able with nice lighting, comfortable seating and mosquito coils. Expats routinely solving all the world’s problems in the garden bar. In a new-ish new location off Road 6; it’s not on the map~have a tuk tuk driver take you there and wait for you. 012-644-286

Sugar Palm

$-$$ Nice surroundings in a traditional wooden stilt house. Very fresh and innovative Khmer food is presented quite nicely. Traditional dishes, with a twist. If you’re not familiar with Khmer food, this is a good pick as the wait staff here actually know how to make a recommendation. Don’t miss the pomelo salad and for sure order the crispy spring rolls.

For Life

$ A new place in the alley near Miss Wong’s. The food is made with great care and it is all excellent, fresh and very affordable. The kitchen can be a bit slow as mom insists on cooking all the food herself, but well worth the wait. Have a drink and relax. 012-545-426

Miss Wong's Siem Reap’s best drinking hole, in a quiet alley behind pub street. See the map. Good house wines by the glass. Inquire about the infused vodka.

Heng An

*Just down the street from Seven Candles, serving local authentic Khmer food. They have some western things on the menu, but do not eat them, especially at breakfast. But you can’t beat the noodle soup or grilled pork with rice in the morning. They have excellent Vietnamese iced coffee with milk. Tasty fried fish with spicy mango dipping sauce, good frogs if they are in season, excellent curries, vegetable dishes, etc. Beer is served Cambodian style, warm over ice so skip it if that’s not your thing.

Star Rise Cheese Sandwich

$* I’m not sure if they actually have cheese sandwiches here. I only eat breakfast at Star Rise. The crepes are terrific, although some of the savory flavors are kind weird, for instance the “ham” crepe has hot dogs in it. The banana and nutella crepe with a couple of scrambled eggs and some coffee will set you straight. No one speaks English except the charming 12 year old waiter, but the menu is in English. Cheapest western breakfast on the street; they open around 6am.

Kulen II

Our pick for the best apsara dancing in town. $12 per person includes dinner, which fills the belly but is otherwise unremarkable. The dancing however is great. It's good to call and reserve a table to make sure you get a good seat.

Hawaii Pizza

$ • Just around the corner on the dirt road that runs next to the Apsara Mar- ket. The pizza is just okay but the khmer food is excellent as is the fish burger and tuna melt smothered in mozzarella. On the way back to the house, stop at the lady making banana fritters on the street.

Loris Guide to Good Eats - download (you may need to use the 'right-click - save as' option), print out and take with you!

(Don’t forget to check out Savuth’s tuk tuk services and the rest of the handy information available throughout the website.)

The Gods of Angkor

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:03:00 +0000

Staying in the theme of the previous post about sculptures, I wanted to bring another exhibit to your attention, especially our American readers or those traveling to Washington, DC in the coming time. "The Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia" is a compact exhibit of 38 bronze sculptures from the ancient Angkor empire.

These statues reflect the Hindu origins and evolution towards Buddhism of the religion celebrated by the ancient Angkorians. They are also wonderful examples of the rich imagery that they were so fond of and which so generously adorn the Angkor temples in Cambodia.

The New York Times arts section ran a wonderful 2-page article about the exhibit with a lot of great background about the evolution of the religious beliefs of the intriguing empire that was the ancient precursor of today's Cambodia.

The exhibit is at the Smithsonian's Freer + Sackler Galleries in Washington DC. It opened in May and runs until January 23, 2011.

Fragments by Blake

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:54:00 +0000

If you are going to be in Siem Reap somewhere between September 23 - November 3 you may want to catch this great sculpture exhibit - Fragments by Blake - at Hotel de la Paix. About the exhibit:

"The pioneering Arts Lounge at the Hôtel de la Paix in Siem Riep, Cambodia will play host to an exhibition by renowned sculptor Blake this month, inspired by landmine survivors. From 23 September until 3 November, ‘Fragments’ by Blake reveals his latest pieces – with 30 per cent of all sales going towards the NGO Cambodian Self Help Demining. Set up by former child soldier Aki Ra, CSHD provides support for surviving victims and helps clear Cambodia of the many landmines that still lie undetected. Working in his characteristic sculptural style, Blake has created a series of 15 bronze figures, each providing a sharp reminder of a devastating war that continues to claim victims. Last year, more than 200 people were either killed or injured in Cambodia after stumbling across an unexploded mine."

You can read more about Blake here and see a couple of great videos about the inspiration for and importance of the sculptures here.

"The Next Cambodia"

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:20:00 +0000

Here's a really nice photo essay with a short introduction from a young Mexican born photographer, Jika González, looking at tomorrow's Cambodia by focusing her eyes and her lens on today's Cambodian youth:

"The youth of a nation is that country’s future. While this is true for all countries, the weight of carrying this heavy responsibility rests especially heavy on the shoulders of the Cambodian youth. According to the C.I.A. World Fact Book, an amazing 50% of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 22..."

The short text from Jika and her pictures will give you some great insight into what to expect if you are planning a trip to Cambodia and will bring back lots of memories if you have been. And if you fall into neither categories, then the essay may change that :).....

Wanderlast brought her here, Wanderlast keeps her here

Thu, 20 May 2010 10:53:00 +0000

This is a wonderful story about an unusual woman who found her way to Cambodia as a tourist and is now applying her experience and vision as fashion-guru-slash-compassionate-global-citizen to make the world literally and figuratively a more beautiful place. Meet Elizabeth Kiester founder of Cambodia's newest 'lifestyle concept' Wanderlust Cambodia:

"girl lives in new york. girl loves fashion, color, art, 5 inch heels and travel... girl works at big fashion mags and later, huge global fashion design companies. girl travels around the world in search of the cool and the new... girl goes to cambodia, and falls in love. falls in love with the country, the beautiful faces, the charming french colonial houses of siem reap; she is head over 5" stiletto heels with the colors of this country, the smell of lemongrass, the sunset warming the verdant rice paddies, the yves-klein-blue shade of the sky...girl goes back to new york, ditches her job, sells her furniture, packs a few inappropriate but necessary heels, and heads back to the allure of siem reap, cambodia... girl goes back to new york, ditches her job, sells her furniture, packs a few inappropriate but necessary heels, and heads back to the allure of siem reap, cambodia... and the result is wanderlust, a lifestyle concept dedicated to giving girls gorgeousness, beautiful things handmade by the beautiful people of this beautiful country, beauty that easily translates to budapest, boston, battambang, bolivia, brighton or any beautiful place they call home."

Wanderlust has one location in Siem Reap and another on Phnom Penh's trendy Street 240. Their products are also available via their website and for those in the States, Wanderlast has recently teamed up with J Crew owned Madewell for a line of exclusive Wanderlast for Madewell products.

Royal Ploughing Ceremony May 2!

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:15:00 +0000

If you are going to be in Siem Reap on May 2 then you are in for a very unique and unusual treat! The annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony, which will be officiated by the King, has been moved from its traditional venue in Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. And not only will it be held in Siem Reap but it will actually take place near the Royal Terraces of Angkor Thom which was the palatial home to several of Angkor's first kings.

You can read the full article from the Phnom Penh Post here.

Additional information about the Royal Ploughing Ceremony can be found here.