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Travelogue
Royal University of Phnom Penh - 19 November 2019
Most visitors to Phnom Penh entering the city along the road from the airport would not see one of the architectural splendors of a city once known as “The Pearl of Asia”. Probably because it’s on the other side of the dual carriageway, and more probably they’re not looking for it. The Royal University of Phnom Penh faces what is now known as Russian Boulevard but was once known as Pochentong Road when the campus was designed and built. The campus is bordered by the intersection of Samdech Penn Nouth (Street 289) and Mao Tse Tung Boulevard, and streets 598 and 608. It was built during a period when many of Phnom Penh’s more contemporary architectural masterpieces were constructed and formed at a time when the area of modern Phnom Penh doubled in size from the time of independence from the French protectorate in 1953, and the 1960s. Cambodia’s second city Battambang (“Bat-dam-bong”) during the same period quintupled in size and is also home to some fine examples of colonial architecture and buildings of what is known as “New Khmer Architecture”. Cambodia has broadly three distinct periods of architecture: the classical of the Khmer empire, the colonial by the French, and that which has been termed “New Khmer Architecture” built during a period of massive urban expansion and development during the 1950s and 1960s championed by the then larger than life, Norodom Sihanouk. Looking back at what happened after that time, the maelstrom of genocide and civil war, bombing
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Living on Street 178 – Part Three – 5 October 2019
All the apartments I’ve rented in Phnom Penh have been on streets with a number ending in an eight. There was Street 108 (Oknha Ing Bun Hoaw Avenue across from Freedom Park near the old colonial quarter), Street 258 (Long Nget Street), and the three apartments I’ve had on Street 178 (Samdach Preah Sokun Meanbon Street). The last apartment I
Down on the Corner, Out in Street 178 - 2 September 2019
My second apartment on Street 178 was in 2007. I got the apartment through my mate, Kiwi Paul, who I had met earlier that year in the Riverside Bar on Sothearos Boulevard. The Riverside is a corner bar in a grand colonial building in rustic colours with white shutters, unlike many of the other colonial era buildings in Phnom Penh, which are
Living on Street 178 - Phnom Penh - 3 August 2019
Street 178 in Phnom Penh runs in a straight line west to east from one of the city’s main boulevards, Monivong, and finishing at another, Sisowath, at the Tonle Sap near the junction with the Mekong River. It is bisected by another of the city’s main thoroughfares, Norodom Boulevard – Street 41, which runs from Wat Phnom, from which the city
Kanchanaburi - On The River Kwai - 8 July 2019
The small city of Kanchanaburi sits at the base of the Tenasserim Hills on the edge of the flood plains of the Chao Phyra, the River of Kings, in what was once jungle. The hills border Myanmar and shelter the Kingdom of Smiles from the typhoons of the Andaman Sea. They also provide a physical barrier between the two countries, long-time rivals
Places I’ve Stayed – A World-Wide Guide – 31 May 2019
I’ve stayed in everything from a 5-star hotel in Singapore to a decrepit pension in Cairo resembling a building site, to a bed and breakfast in a high-rise in the backstreets of communist Budapest. I’ve slept in huts made of branches on the beach in the Sinai Peninsula, on a promenade in Monaco with the pavement for a pillow, bamboo huts in the
Seven Hours to Son My - 22 April 2019
I once spent over seven hours on the back of a motorbike to go from the tourist town of Hoi An south on National Route 1 to Son My in central Vietnam, and back again. The trip was an endurance test in how uncomfortable small motorbikes can be on large European frames on Vietnamese roads. Travelling on National Route 1 (or 1A), which runs 2300kms
Marble Mountains and China Beaches - 21 March 2019
South central Vietnam has its share of people-made wonders but hereabouts has its natural attractions also. Just south of Danang squeezed between the South China Sea and the rapidly encroaching suburbs of Vietnam’s fifth-largest city are the Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn). Holy hideaways used down through the ages by the Cham peoples through to
My Son – Circles of Kings in Lands Below the Winds - 21 February 2019
One of the sights to see near the Vietnamese tourist hotspot of Hoi An is My Son, Vietnam’s most important centre of the ancient Champa Kingdom and another UNESCO World Heritage site in this most fascinating country. While Hoi An ancient town is regarded as an exceptionally well-preserved example of a multicultural Southeast Asian trading