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Home » Destinations » Asia » Cambodia

Final Thoughts: Cambodia

Published: Sep 29, 2008 by Dave Lee |

Deep Thoughts at Angkor Wat

Highlights -

  • Meeting Alice, Sandy, Phillip and Ross on the bus to Siem Reap
  • Exploring Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm ("Tomb Raider"), and other temples
  • My first shiatsu massage by a blind person
  • Visiting and supporting local community - Butterfly Garden restaurant, Angkor Children's Hospital, Handicap International
  • Talking travel for hours with Alice, the girls from Finland and Norway, and a guy from Philadelphia on my last night in Siem Reap
  • The scenic boat ride to Battambang
  • Moto tours through rural villages to killing caves and fields
  • Hearing Phi-lay describe his first hand account of life under the Khmer Rouge
  • Eating dinner and watching Bollywood movies with Phi-lay's family (twice)
  • Completing the dog dare

The scenic countryside around Battambang

  • Pushing myself to try local foods like snake, grasshopper, and frog (just not the spiders....or the little fried birds....or the BIG cockroaches)
  • Reading "First They Killed My Father"
  • Visiting the Royal Palace
  • Eating dinner at the Foreign Correspondent's Club (FCC) along the riverfront in Phnom Penh
  • Spending an emotional and quiet morning at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum (S-21)
  • Walking through the killing fields at Choeung Ek
  • Buying 40 albums of mp3's at $0.75 apiece
  • Buying 4 paintings by Cambodian artists
  • The epic 16-hour minibus ride to Ban Lung with 16 Cambodians and a lot of bags/luggage
  • Swimming in my first crater lake and visiting waterfalls via moto rides through rural villages
  • 4x4 action and scenic boat rides to ethnic villages in remote (by my standards) northeastern Cambodia
  • The friendliness, smiles, cheerful "hello's" and hospitality of Cambodians (especially the kids in the countryside)

Monk on a bike

Lowlights -

  • My brand new ASUS AC adapter breaking (third occurrence overall)
  • The epic 16-hour minibus ride to Ban Lung with 16 Cambodians and a lot of bags/luggage
  • My Creative mp3 player breaking, as well as the first replacement I bought

Eating snake with Phi-lay

Eating -

Amok with chicken or fish and rice, Cambodian curry, fried rice, baguettes, coffee, pizza, ostrich, bugs, grasshopper, dog, snake, frog, Angkor beer, banana pancakes, parma ham risotto with mushroom sauce (Phnom Penh)

Dining at the Foreign Correspondent's Club (FCC) in Phnom Penh

# of Days Couchsurfing -

0

Kids play at their local swimming hole - the crater lake of a volcano

Average Cost Per Day -

$63 (would be about $10 less if I didn't buy a new mp3 player, lots of music and souvenirs)

A few patches of blue sky above Ban Lung in Ratanakiri

Related Stories

  • Dave at Boeng Yeak Laom, a volcano crater lake
    Backpack Cambodia: 5 Reasons to Go
  • Angkor Wat (photo: Dave Lee)
    5 Things Cambodia Is Best Known For
  • First They Killed My Father Netflix
    Should I Watch "First They Killed My Father" Before Traveling to Cambodia?
  • No Name Bar
    Top 5 Places to Party Before Sunrise at Angkor Wat
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About Dave Lee

Dave is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Go Backpacking and Feastio. He's been to 68 countries and lived in Colombia and Peru. Read the full story of how he became a travel blogger.

Dave at Ahu Ko Te Riku on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile.

Hi, I'm Dave

Editor in Chief

I've been writing about adventure travel on Go Backpacking since 2007. I've visited 68 countries.

Read more about Dave.

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