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
- 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
- 4×4 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)
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 –
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)
# of Days Couchsurfing –
0
Average Cost Per Day –
$63 (would be about $10 less if I didn't buy a new mp3 player, lots of music and souvenirs)
Last Updated on
Enlight says
September 29, 2008 at 8:11 pmHey Dave I added your link on my travel blog.
I departed around the same time as you. I started in Egypt and stayed five months. Then one month in Jordan, one month in Syria, and two months in Beirut house-sitting. Currently I am in Turkey.
I will get to Cambodia around 2011 or 2012.
Enlight says
September 29, 2008 at 3:11 pmHey Dave I added your link on my travel blog.
I departed around the same time as you. I started in Egypt and stayed five months. Then one month in Jordan, one month in Syria, and two months in Beirut house-sitting. Currently I am in Turkey.
I will get to Cambodia around 2011 or 2012.
Enlight says
September 29, 2008 at 8:51 pmBy the way, Dave, $50 to $60 dollars a day? It is expensive there in Cambodia? I have been in South-East and Eastern Turkey and have been spending about $30 a day. Turkey is 50% more expensive then Syria. Jordan is even cheaper than Turkey.
I though Cambodia is a cheap place to travel.
In Egypt I spent about $20 a day sometimes $15, also in Syria.
Dave says
September 30, 2008 at 12:22 pmIt’s not that it’s expensive in Cambodia, but I don’t tend to stay in the cheapest guest house, or eat at the cheapest restaurants. The cheaper the place, the more likely I’m to spend more there. Overall, I’ve averaged about $50-55 a day for my 8 months in Asia and India. Some places I spent more, some less, but it mostly fell on this figure. I also use the internet more than most people due to this blog.
Enlight says
September 29, 2008 at 3:51 pmBy the way, Dave, $50 to $60 dollars a day? It is expensive there in Cambodia? I have been in South-East and Eastern Turkey and have been spending about $30 a day. Turkey is 50% more expensive then Syria. Jordan is even cheaper than Turkey.
I though Cambodia is a cheap place to travel.
In Egypt I spent about $20 a day sometimes $15, also in Syria.
Dave says
September 30, 2008 at 7:22 amIt’s not that it’s expensive in Cambodia, but I don’t tend to stay in the cheapest guest house, or eat at the cheapest restaurants. The cheaper the place, the more likely I’m to spend more there. Overall, I’ve averaged about $50-55 a day for my 8 months in Asia and India. Some places I spent more, some less, but it mostly fell on this figure. I also use the internet more than most people due to this blog.
Kango Suz says
October 20, 2008 at 12:31 pmAnd we’re all so glad that you keep us updated regularly!
Plus… you have expensive toys that keep breaking along the way- arn’t you on your 3rd camera and MP3 players?
-Suz
Kango Suz says
October 20, 2008 at 5:31 pmAnd we’re all so glad that you keep us updated regularly!
Plus… you have expensive toys that keep breaking along the way- arn’t you on your 3rd camera and MP3 players?
-Suz
Jane says
April 22, 2014 at 10:49 amLoved reading about Cambodia! It was one of my favorite places to visit. Good for you for trying different foods there, I stuck to Amok A LOT! I would go back there in a heart beat to do some more exploring. Did you go to the remote area north of S. Reap where monks carved into the rocks and waterfalls…..it was like a dream.