Cambodia

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Pictures
Route
1 On to Cambodia
2 Phnom Penh
3 On to Siem Reap
4 Angkor
5 Angkor
6 Angkor
7 Siem Reap

Our route is shown in red (click map for a more detailed version)

•	Across the border from Vietnam and by boat along the Mekong to...
•	Phnom Penh
•	Siem Reap
•	Temples ruins of Angkor (spread around Siem Reap) and floating villages on Tonlé Sap
•	Flight from Siem Reap via Phnom Penh and on to Kuala Lumpur

Cambodia

We came to Cambodia primarily to visit the temples of Angkor, and weren't disappointed as they were a unique and magical sight. But besides the "lost city in the jungle" (not really, but it speaks to the imagination), we also learned about Cambodia's more recent tragic past, from spillover of the American War in Vietnam, the subsequent brutal Khmer Rouge regime and finally the years of Vietnamese occupation. It is only now that Cambodia is gradually beginning to emerge from these experiences and it shows.

Once Cambodia was at the centre of the ancient Khmer empire but now it is an Asian backwater. Fascinating for all that and we were very glad to have come here, for which we have Tim and Erica to thank as we would otherwise have flown directly from Vietnam to Malaysia.

Diary

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
Jan	30	31	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Feb
Feb	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	Feb

Books, Films, Music, Links, etc.

For more references, check our links section. (LP) indicates it's a reference we've picked up in our trusty Lonely Planet books, not necessarily a recommendation!
•	City of Ghosts, a great film noir directed by, and starring, Matt Dillon, with James Caan, Gerard Depardieu, Stellar Somethinggaard (need to look it up), and Natasha McElhone ("wasn't she in those Nestlé adverts?" - no, that was someone else). We bought and watched the film a couple of times in Canada, not knowing then that we would end up visiting Cambodia, the country where the story is situated.
•	Tomb Raider, with Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. Some scenes were filmed at the temples of Angkor.
•	The Killing Fields, film.
•	A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, by Norman Lewis (1951) (LP)
•	To Asia with Love: A Connoisseur's Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, ed. Kim Fay (2004) (LP)
•	The Coast of Cambodia, by Robert Philpotts (2001) (LP)
•	Off the rails in Phnom Penh - Guns, Girls and Ganja, by Amit Gilboa (1998) (LP)
•	Here's a list of some references to the "dark void into which the country plunged in the 1970s", i.e. the civil war followed by the Khmer Rouge regime.
•	Brother Enemy, by Nayan Chanda (1985) (LP)
•	Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden, by Tim Page (1995) (LP)
•	First they killed my father, by Luong Ung (2001) (LP)
•	History of Cambodia, by David Chandler (1994) (LP)
•	Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness, by Milton Osbourne (1994) (LP)
•	River of Time, by Jon Swain (1997) (LP)
•	Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, by William Shawcross (1979) (LP)
•	The Gate, by Francois Bizot (2003) (LP)
•	The Pol Pot Regime, by Ben Kiernan (1996) (LP)
•	Voices from S-21, by David Chandler (1999) (LP)

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