Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Kh”
Khmer Money
May 21, 2012
Handling money in Cambodia is an interesting thing. Cambodia is one of the few countries where two currencies are used side-by-side and in the same transaction.
The local currency, Riel, is close to worthless with 4000 Riel to one dollar US. Like other currencies in the area (Kip, Dong) it is only useful in its country of origin and attempts to exchange it elsewhere are usually futile.
What many people don’t know and what the money changers at the border don’t want you to know is that the USD can be used in every Cambodian city.
Bargaining
February 12, 2012
Still no news on the job-front, the idea of leaving this country becomes more and more appealing. Doing business with Kiwis has been no fun so far. How different Asia is in that regard, here’s my collected know-how on getting good deals in SEA.
Everybody knows that in Asian countries bargaining is common and locals often try to charge foreigners ridiculously high prices. So how do you bargain successfully, how do you get a price you know is not completely hilarious?
In Hindsight
December 10, 2011
Still no news on the job front. The agency apparently had a bit of trouble and I had to call them twice to get things going. By now all my referees have replied to them and hopefully they’ll provide some feedback to the company early next week.
Can’t stand this waiting around without anything to do. The job is so attractive that I’m not seriously interested in applying for other offers and thus there’s not much to do other than wait.
Gambling Night
October 13, 2011
On Wednesday the bar belonging to my guest house hosted a NLHE poker tournament with $5 buy-in. Of course I had to join in and so did nine others, making a total of ten players. Those without a clue were gone soon and in the end I was fighting with a French railway engineer and a US online pokerplayer for the first price. Our weapons were monopoly and scrabble pieces as they didn’t have proper poker chips in the bar.
Relaxing in Kampot
October 12, 2011
Kampot is a bit of a strange place. My room costs me $5 a night but meals at the restaurant go for $3-$5. If you’re used to food being about $1 that’s quite a lot. There is not many street food places around here and those that are there don’t look like I want to eat there.
Locals are surprisingly disinterested in me. Usually any sign of white skin makes a centre of attention but not here.
Kampot
October 11, 2011
Phnom Penh is an interesting city but not really to my taste. It is much dirtier than Bangkok and at the moment parts of the city are under water. That makes strolling around a bit disgusting at times. Watching Phnom Penh makes it obvious that Cambodia is way less developed than Thailand.
The guy who hosted me has a really large place (seven bedrooms) and there was always a couple of couchsurfers at his place.
A very diverse Day
October 8, 2011
Friday started with a visit to Cambodia’s recent history. The Tuol Sleng museum in town is a former school that was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. They used it to ‘interrogate’ political opponents and interrogation here as the same meaning as with the catholic inquisition.
Those unlucky enough to end up here were either tortured to death or tortured and then brought to a killing field outside the city.
Phnom Penh
October 6, 2011
Left Bangkok at 3:30 in mildly cloudy weather. Really felt sad about leaving Thailand as I had such an amazing time.
The flight to Phnom Penh takes a little over an hour and about 20 minutes before our arrival the weather changed. Nothing like sitting in an airplane that’s heading for a tropical thunderstorm.
We finally bumped through the clouds and below us stretched the surroundings of Phnom Penh. The area is so heavily flooded, it would have looked like an ocean hadn’t there been the occasional tree line.
People in Cambodia
July 28, 2011
Playing around with all that sliders in Adobe Lightroom turned some shots presentable that were formerly not properly exposed and that I didn’t wanted to put online. Now here’s some (late) impressions from the streets of Cambodia.
Recent Cambodian History
July 1, 2011
Before I came to Asia I didn’t know much about Cambodia and would have had trouble pointing it out on a map. All I knew was that it’s somewhere in Asia, has some massive temples and some kind of war going on. Well the later isn’t true any more, that was just a fact I picked up as a teenager and kept in memory.
The western world had its fair share of genocide with Hitler and the catholic church being some of the major players in the league of slaughtering countless innocent people.
Sightseeing
June 30, 2011
Yesterday I hired a tuk-tuk to have a look at same places near Battambang. I went with an ‘independent’ driver who was recommended to me by the French expats. Independent means that he’s working in the streets like you would expect it and doesn’t hang out in front of the tourist hotels hoping for big money.
From what the guy told me he used to run into trouble with the ‘hotel drivers’ as they followed him and beat him up after he ‘stole’ one of their customers.
Battambang
June 28, 2011
My guest house organized a bus ticket to Battambang for me and with the usual slight delay I was picked up and transported to the main bus station this morning. The place is basically a big hall with a couple of buses and merchants trying to sell fruit, bread and other stuff. Quite similar to Thailand just the signs are in Khmer instead of Thai script.
Our driver made extensive use of the horn, getting everything on two wheels to take flight on the street shoulders.
Siem Reap Impressions
June 27, 2011
Being a curious person I always try to get a first-hand impression of things. The internet, various books and fellow travellers are good sources of information but making experiences myself is still the best input. Thus today I once again made myself a subject of science and went to compare Thai and Khmer massage.
The area around the old market seemed like a good spot for that with heaps of massage places around.
Temple Finale
June 26, 2011
Angkor Wat, described as the mother of all temples and probably the largest religious building in the world. I saved it for the last day of my temple tour and was excited to get there. After splurging with tuk-tuk rides the last two days it was time to be a backpacker again and get onto a bicycle.
Visiting the temples by bicycle has the added benefit of seeing more along the way and being able to stop everywhere. I made a first stop at the moat that surrounds Angkor Wat. It’s a massive 190m wide, that should beat every European castle easily.
Next to where I was standing a Cambodian woman in modest clothes was fiddling around with her mobile. When I was about to leave she asked if I could spare a minute and help her with her phone. I expected something like ‘how do I change this setting’ but instead she told me she just uploaded some photos of Angkor to flickr and couldn’t edit the description. I did not expect that.
Not ten minutes later I got in touch with even more people (apart from the ever-present dealers). I was watching the entrance of Angkor Wat when an old guy started to talk to me in French. I didn’t have a clue of what he wanted but my ‘pardon, je ne comprend pas’ earned me a friendly laugh and a ‘merci beaucoup’. He continued to smoke cigarettes with a monk as old as him.
Walking over the causeway towards the entrance gives you a good idea of how large that 190m wide moat is. Inside the temple area I almost stumbled over a wild monkey
Day Two at the Temples
June 25, 2011
Before heading to Angkor today I went into town to have a look at the local market. From the guest house it’s just a relaxed ten minute walk along the river.
The market is very similar to those I’ve seen in Thailand. Incredibly cramped and everything is for sale. As my need for souvenirs is pretty much covered I was mostly looking for food and interesting photo opportunities. The Khmer food has been a bit of a disappointment so far.
Bangkok to Siem Reap, the Journey's second Part
June 24, 2011
At Mochit bus station I get a ticket for a bus leaving at 9:00 am to Aranyaprathet, the border town on the Thai side. It is a first class bus but the main difference between first and second class is usually the travel time. Both feature air-con and uncomfy seats.
I’m interested in a quick arrival as I have a contact expecting me at the border between 12 and 2pm. Sounds a bit like taken from a movie but it’s just the arrangement I have with a Siem Reap guest house. They offer this service free of charge and it’s a good way to clear the biggest trouble spot on the journey, the Cambodian site of the border.
The bus leaves with a slight delay and that the driver is stopping at a servo to fill up is not really helping with getting to the border quickly. I have a look at the map, estimate the travel time and see that I’ll be at the border close to 2pm.
Just minutes before that time we reach the bus station in Aranyaprathet. From there to the border it’s another 5km and my sources recommend taking a tuk-tuk. To my surprise all the Thais stay on the bus and I find out that the bus is going to Rongklua market which is directly at the border.
Now the bus company doesn’t want to take all the income from the tuk-tuk drivers so
First Angkor Impressions
June 24, 2011
When I woke up this morning I realized that I slept 12 hours straight. Feeling much better now. I got myself some breakfast and then went back to the computer to take care of some stuff for Andy. His webhosting company is still incapable of unblocking some IPs so after waiting for an hour I decided that it was time to see some temples.
The guest house organized a tuk-tuk for me and off we went.
Cambodia
June 23, 2011
I made it, 30 hours after checking out of my bungalow on Koh Tao I arrived at the guest house in Siem Reap. My means of transportation were the back of a ute, a ferry, a coach, a train, the subway, Bangkok’s public buses, another coach, the back-seat of a motorcycle and finally a taxi. More details later, in dire need for food and sleep now.