Destination: Cambodia
Headed to Angkor Wat? Beware the Dengue.
by Jim Benning | 08.21.08 | 11:15 AM ET
World Travel Watch notes that, although dengue fever cases in Cambodia are down from last year, “the risk is still high in major tourist areas, especially Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat.” Dengue, of course, is spread by mosquitos that are no doubt loving monsoon season in Southeast Asia. How I hate monsoon season. As we’ve noted, dengue is expected to rise around the world as temperatures increase, and dengue should be taken seriously: The less common hemorrhagic dengue can be fatal.
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Yahoo! BuzzCambodians Wary of Angkor Museum
by Julia Ross | 07.07.08 | 4:33 PM ET
A new Thai-backed museum/mall complex located a few miles from Angkor Wat is drawing fire from Cambodians skeptical of the enterprise’s motives. The New York Times reports that restoration specialists are unhappy with the Angkor National Museum’s “aesthetics” and lack of scholarly content, while others suspect that the Thais have designs on Cambodia’s architectural heritage. In fact, anti-Thai riots erupted in 2003 over the issue of Angkor’s provenance.
R.I.P. Dith Pran
by Jim Benning | 03.31.08 | 11:07 AM ET
The New York Times photographer whose story was immortalized in the movie “The Killing Fields” died Sunday. Remarked the Times’ executive editor: “To all of us who have worked as foreign reporters in frightening places, Pran reminds us of a special category of journalistic heroism—the local partner, the stringer, the interpreter, the driver, the fixer, who knows the ropes, who makes your work possible, who often becomes your friend, who may save your life, who shares little of the glory, and who risks so much more than you do.”
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Pondering ‘Tourism’s Withering Impact’ in Asia
by Michael Yessis | 03.27.08 | 3:39 PM ET
Denis D. Gray looks at the rise of travel to “places once isolated by conflicts, hostile regimes and ‘off-road’ geography to which only the more intrepid travelers had earlier ventured.”
New Travel Book: Bad Karma
by Frank Bures | 11.29.07 | 10:19 AM ET
Full title: “Bad Karma: Confessions of a Reckless Traveller in Southeast Asia”
Author: Tamara Sheward
Released: Nov. 1, 2007 (U.S.)
Travel genre: Bad Aussies abroad (you know the type)
Territory covered: Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
Angkor Wat, Better When It Rains
by Julia Ross | 11.08.07 | 1:30 PM ET
When writer Stephen Brookes told friends he planned to visit Cambodia’s Angkor Wat in July—the height of monsoon season—they said he was crazy. “You’re certain to get stranded in your hotel, swatting at mosquitoes and hoping you don’t come down with malaria,” came the general response. Well, Brookes and his wife proved them wrong. In a story for the Washington Post, Brookes recounts a lovely trip to Angkor in the off-season, when costs are low, tourists are sparse, and visitors can take in the temples at their leisure.
Ethical Traveler Takes On Child Sex Trafficking in Cambodia
by Jim Benning | 08.29.07 | 3:30 PM ET
Ethical Traveler and partnering organizations recently announced a campaign against child sex trafficking in Cambodia, urging supporters to sign a letter to the nation’s tourism minister. “As many as 100,000 women and children may be at risk,” the organization states. “Cambodia’s efforts to eliminate this slave trade have been hindered by corruption, poor law enforcement, and a weak judiciary system.” To learn more, I traded e-mails with travel writer and Ethical Traveler Executive Director Jeff Greenwald.
World Hum: How optimistic are you that the Cambodian government will take appropriate action?
New Discoveries at Cambodia’s Angkor
by Jim Benning | 08.14.07 | 12:14 PM ET
An international team of scientists using NASA satellite images, among other tools, has determined that the medieval city of Angkor was at least three times larger than previously thought—about the size of present-day Los Angeles.
Wanted: Cambodian Noodle Joint in New York
by Julia Ross | 06.27.07 | 3:26 PM ET
If New York is the food capital of the world, why is a good bowl of kuy thiew so hard to come by? That’s the question writer Matthew Fishbane poses in a Salon essay examining America’s reluctance to embrace Cambodian cuisine. Recalling his days slurping noodles at sidewalk stands in Phnom Penh, he desperately searches the city for an authentic taste of fish sauce and lemongrass, but finds only one Cambodian joint on the Lower East Side, and its offerings don’t quite measure up.
Illuminating ‘Dark Travel’
by Frank Bures | 06.18.07 | 1:45 PM ET
The "Lonely Planet 2007 Blue List" and Adam Russ's "101 Places Not to Visit" spur Frank Bures to contemplate why travelers don't always want to be delivered from inconvenience.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Great Wall, Good Grief!
by Michael Yessis | 12.01.06 | 8:50 AM ET
Is the world falling apart? Travelers this week seem concerned that it is, as crumbling attractions in China, England and Cambodia have grabbed our attention. Don’t worry. A man in India has some duct tape, and if he can fix a plane with it, surely he could be handy with it elsewhere. Here’s your Zeitgeist.
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The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
by Jim Benning | 11.27.06 | 9:14 AM ET
They’re not the only places in the world being overrun with tourists, of course, but their tourism woes have been highlighted in recent days by the New York Times, Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, respectively. The New York Times on Sunday focused on the Great Wall of China, which is suffering under the weight of an estimated 13 million visitors a year. “[T]he Great Wall is not just crumbling,” writes Jim Yardley. “It is disappearing. Roughly half of the estimated 4,000 miles of the wall built during the Ming Dynasty no longer exists, according to a recent report. It is also regularly being abused.” Among other problems, he writes, last year “the police broke up a huge dance party of Chinese ravers atop the wall a few hours’ drive outside Beijing.”
No. 18: “All the Wrong Places” by James Fenton
by Frank Bures | 05.14.06 | 11:53 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1988
Territory covered: Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and the Philippines
James Fenton is not only one of the great characters of travel writing, having starred as the poet-sidekick of Redmond O’Hanlon in his Into the Heart of Borneo. He also happens to be one of the great travel writers, having authored classics of the genre like The Snap Revolution, about the chaos surrounding the fall of Marcos in the Philippines. At the time, the entire region was convulsing in the Cold War, and having been given an award for “traveling and writing poetry,” Fenton had to pick a place to go. “Looking at what the world had to offer,” he wrote, “I thought either Africa or Indochina would be the place to go. I chose the latter, partly on a whim.” Once there, Fenton watched governments rise and fall, and many of his stories in All the Wrong Places read like semi-comic thrillers. They are required reading for anyone traveling through Southeast Asia who wants to understand the background against which their travels take place.
Sihanoukville, Cambodia: It’s the New Prague!
by Jim Benning | 01.12.06 | 1:14 PM ET
Okay, it’s not the new Prague. But Alexander Lobrano’s friend in Bangkok insisted that the Cambodian beach town of Sihanoukville was “the next Goa, the new Phi Phi,” the place to go for hipster bohemian backpackers in the know. So off Lobrano went to Sihanoukville, located a three-hour drive south of Phnom Penh. As he writes in the International Herald Tribune, he found a lovely beach town once popular with “Cambodia’s glamorous beau monde during the ‘60s,” a place where luxury hotels are on the rise and an airport runway is slated for lengthening and reinforcement.
Graham Defends “Suicide Tourism”
by Michael Yessis | 11.28.05 | 8:33 AM ET
Earlier this month, Roger Graham shut down his Web site promoting Cambodia as a great place to commit suicide in an effort to avoid a confrontation with local authorities. That didn’t happen. According to a Reuters report, the provincial governor of Kampot has filed a lawsuit against Graham, accusing him of defaming the province.