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Sihanoukville on the Costa del Cambodia - 1 August 2014
In an attempt to avoid going stir-crazy in Phnom Penh, you can take a bus to Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s only deep-sea port and leading beach resort area on the Gulf of Thailand. The French named it...
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Reunification Palace - The Dragon's Head - 31 August 2014
Near the centre of present day Ho Chi Minh City sits the Reunification Palace, a relic of Vietnam’s more recent past and a symbol of its present, and probably future too. HCMC, or Saigon as it’s still...
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War Remnants Museum in HCMC - 29 September 2014
The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City is a somewhat harrowing experience. The displays and images are a sobering reminder of Vietnam’s recent violent history and demonstrate what belligerent...
View ArticleThe Walkabout Bar and Hotel in Phnom Penh - Dark and Dingy Does It - 29...
The Walkabout Bar and Hotel in Phnom Penh is somewhat of an expat institution, albeit a rather seedy one. Some might say it’s got character of sorts, with the majority of its regular patrons usually...
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Boeung Kak - The Lake That Disappeared - 9 December 2014
Many visitors to the Cambodian capital today would be unaware the city once had a lake. Boeung Kak Lake (usually “Bong Kak”) was the largest urban wetland in Phnom Penh. All up it was 90 hectares (222...
View ArticleVietnamese Cafe Street 51 Phnom Penh - 31 January 2015
The sidewalk Vietnamese coffee shop on Street 51 in Phnom Penh can be a great place to spend an evening watching life go by and can also serve to catch up on the latest developments. If you’re lucky...
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Dalat - Misty Mountain Hop - 1 March 2015
If you’re tired of the heat in tropical Vietnam you can do what the colonials used to do, head for the hills. A few hours by road from Saigon is Dalat (or Da Lat), the capital of Lam Dong, and a stop...
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Ben Thanh Market - High Pressure Sales - 4 April 2015
Cho Ben Thanh, or Ben Thanh Market is the most celebrated and regularly visited of Saigon’s markets and probably the city’s biggest tourist trap. It’s a hive of commercial activity and the sights are...
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Dazed and Confused - Saigon to Phnom Penh by Bus - 1 May 2015
I like the differences about Asia, not the similarities. If it was all the same I’d stay home. On a recent trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh I was struck by the way things in Asia have a curious way of...
View ArticleThe Withered and the Worn - Expats in Phnom Penh - 2 June 2015
I’ve noticed of late more of the hard bitten expat brigade about Phnom Penh. These are much like the ones you more often see in Thailand in large numbers usually congregating in that kingdom’s...
View ArticleExpats about Phnom Penh - 30 June 2015
Some people go to Cambodia for a holiday. Others never go home. Here are a few I've met. Davey – bar managerDavey was from Hull. This struck a chord with me as I once went out with a lass from Hull or...
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Phnom Penh's Traffic Woes Set to Continue - 24 August 2015
Phnom Penh’s municipal authorities have come up with a proposal to cure the capital of its increasing traffic congestion – banning buses. To be clear they’re not talking about municipal bus services in...
View ArticleTo Live and Die in Southeast Asia - 25 September 2015
Death and taxes are the only things certain in life so they reckon. Well death anyway, some people never pay taxes. Where you choose to live invariably impacts on where you’re likely to die, even how....
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Life and Times of the Happiness Guesthouse Phnom Penh - 8 October 2015
It's hard not to be impressed with the value for money of hotels and guesthouses in Cambodia's capital. Every time I go there I discover some new place and give it a try. And then there are the old...
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Return to Boeung Kak Lake - 1 December 2015
I recently revisited “lakeside” the area of my first stay in Phnom Penh years ago. The entrance is along Street 93, behind Calmette Hospital off Monivong Boulevard, one of the city’s major...
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Chiang Rai - The Very North Of Thailand - 3 January 2016
If you head north from the tourist mecca of Chiang Mai you come to the confusingly named city of Chiang Rai. One-tenth the size of its more famous southern neighbour, Chiang Rai sits near the very top...
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Russians in Southeast Asia - Here Today, Back Tomorrow - 21 January 2016
Over the last 20 years or so the numbers of Russians visiting Southeast Asia have gone from hardly any at all to a flood, and much like a flood have receded somewhat, but probably not for long....
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The Golden Triangle - Life and Death in the Middle Mekong - 24 February 2016
They say knowing things in the Golden Triangle is much more dangerous than not knowing them. One journalist reported rather it’s better to be ignorant than complicit, and it’s better to be complicit...
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Monument to Democracy, Thai-style - 28 March 2016
Near the main backpacker centre of Khao San Road in Bangkok is the Democracy Monument. Most backpackers wouldn’t know it’s there or if they scan the guidebooks thoroughly enough may give it the quick...
View ArticleThe Walkabout Bar and Hotel in Phnom Penh - Dark and Dingy Does It - 29...
The Walkabout Bar and Hotel in Phnom Penh is somewhat of an expat institution, albeit a rather seedy one. Some might say it’s got character of sorts, with the majority of its regular patrons usually...
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