Travelogue
Sin City Pattaya - 8 February 2012
A t-shirt in Thailand says “Good guys go to heaven but bad guys go to Pattaya.” Pattaya, about a 90-minute drive southeast from Bangkok, looks like Australia’s Surfer’s Paradise from afar and has about as much charm but arguably more character. Anthropologists and some sociologists might even find it fascinating, psychologists too. Visitors cover the whole realm of human kind; holiday makers, retirees (young and not so young), families, backpackers and travellers, package tourists of all description and some defying description. There are even Danish Hell’s Angels on Harleys in their full regalia, and gargantuan bodybuilders attracted by the gyms, climate and easier access to steroids. Pattaya is a veritable human zoo and a fascinating place to people watch. For years I avoided it like the plague, until I discovered it’s not all sleaze. Pattaya, and indeed Bangkok, can be reached from Phnom Penh in a day by road. Thai minibus drivers like to speed. Preferably this should be done as close as possible to the vehicles in front or to the side, hopefully while being distracted while on the phone (texting is good) or changing a CD, and best of all when visibility is poor, such as at night during some tropical downpour, which should act as no deterrent at all to speeds in excess of 100kph. Thailand has been accepting tourists increasingly in their droves since modest beginnings in the late 1950s. But it was the Vietnam War, when American
Jimmie the Knife - 5 February 2012
The old phrase “Putting your arse on the line” took on a whole new meaning in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh recently, when a young American resident was shot on his way home from a bar. Heading home in the early hours of Sunday morning, Jimmie aged 24, was approaching Norodom Boulevard, one of the city’s main thoroughfares from
Who Killed Chea Vichea - 1 February 2012
US documentary film maker, Bradley Cox once said “hero” is one of the most over used words in the English language. Interviewed about his 55-minute documentary “Who Killed Chea Vichea” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, Cox commented “I don't know if I ever met an honest-to-goodness hero in the flesh until I met Chea
Hollywood in Cambodia - 16 January 2012
Cambodia has proved a challenge for film makers over the years. For most movie goers, the enduring cinematic image is that of Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields, set during the Khmer Rouge era, though the film itself was shot entirely in Thailand, and slated for its Hollywood depiction of events.Other films however, did make it to the
The Curious Case of the Kings of Cambodia and the Kims of Korea - 7 January 2012
I’ve only set foot in North Korea once. It was cold, bleak, and I was surrounded by heavily-armed military-types with their eyes shielded by sunglasses, and they were just the South Koreans. On the surface of it, Cambodia and North Korea have little in common. Separated by distance, ideology, climate and language Cambodia has
Tourism in Cambodia - Palace Closed but Killing Fields Open - 12 December 2011
It was a Saturday morning and I cut down the short street from Preah Sisowath and Boulevard Samdech Sothearos to the Royal Palace, on the Phnom Penh riverside. From the side of the road the tuk-tuk driver asked where I was going. “Palace closed” he said “but Killing Fields open” and grinned.I have been to the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh once
Strength Through Oi - Cowboys and Expats in Cambodia - 30 November 2011
One of the interesting things about living in Cambodia is some of the expats you meet. There are some weird and some wonderful foreigners who have chosen, for a variety of reasons, to relocate to the self-styled Kingdom of Wonder. Some are here out of genuine love of the place. They’ve come here for everything that’s different about
The Museum of Bats - 20 November 2011
The National Museum of Cambodia sits along the western side of the large square in Phnom Penh also bordered by the Royal Palace, Street 178 and grand French colonial mansions near the Riverside on Boulevard Sothearos, not far from where the Tonie Sap River merges with the Bassac and Mekong rivers. It is the largest historical, cultural and
Return of the King - 8 November 2011
The Kingdom of Cambodia has the last remnant of royalty in the territories that were part of what was once known as French Indochina. The Emporer Bo Dai abdicated in Vietnam in 1945, and the communist Pathet Lao, ironically led by a former royal, had the entire Laos monarchy locked up in 1975. Cambodia is awash with public holidays
