One of MCC colleagues in the Middle East has an album on Facebook full of cat photos that he’s taken there. I thought that I’d allow myself to follow suite, in the same vein as my Flowers of Cambodia posts, and upload some cat photos. Okay, there is one cat from Thailand in the photos…
Category: Around Cambodia
Visiting Isaac’s Host Family in Mesang
Last month during our team visit to Prey Veng province we visited Isaac, our SALT participant, who is living with a Khmer host family there and working at ODOV. Isaac is a recent graduate in Environmental Science from Eastern Mennonite University and is supporting ODOV as the Climate Resilience Assistant. Isaac’s host family in Mesang…
Kratie Project Visit – April 2022
Late in April 2022, our family was finally – after two long years of COVID travel restrictions – able to make the trip to the remote Northeast and visit the project in Kratie province. When we came to Cambodia in 2019 I had planned to take the girls along on field visits regularly but due…
Visiting Ba Phnom in Prey Veng
Last month during our team visit to Prey Veng province we visited Ba Phnom district. Located in the flat heartlands of the Mekong delta, Ba Phnom holds the only “mountains” in Prey Veng province. Ba Phnom is an ancient cultural center of the Khmer people. The name Ba Phnom actually means [Ancestor] [Mountain]. The first…
Sihanoukville
Imagine that – instead of Washington DC – George Washington personally established the United States’ foremost seaside resort, Washingtonville, and that it was the top vacation spot for Americans for decades. That should give you an idea of how Cambodians view Sihanoukville. King Norodom Sihanouk, after negotiating bloodless independence from France, founded Sihanoukville; Cambodia’s only…
Battambang, Kuy Teav, and a not so Bamboo Train
In January, we made a long weekend trip to Battambang province to celebrate Sokea’s engagement. We have been waiting to write about it until after she announced her engagement on social media (which she did earlier this month). We travelled by bus with Ringsey and Doungchann. It was a very long, very bumpy ride due…
Family vacation to Siem Reap
In July 2020, we took a family vacation to Siem Reap province. In Khmer, the name Siem Reap literally means ‘Siam defeated‘ while the Thai refer to the province as ‘Siemmarat‘ which literally means ‘Siam’s territory.‘ Siem Reap is the home of the ruins of the ancient city of Angkor; which was the largest pre-industrial…
2020 Visit to Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm is my favorite of the ruins in Siem Reap province. This starts with the walk through jungle from the perimeter wall to the temple ruins. This post will be video and photo heavy, so please mind your bandwidth, but I included some quick text at the end offering some background on Ta Prohm….
2020 visit to Phimeanakas
Phimeanakas is one of the older temples in Angkor Thom built at the end of the 10th century. It sits in the walled enclosure of the royal palace and it’s southern neighbor is Baphoun. It was closed when we visited in 2020. It ended up being better that Phimeanakas was closed. After a long morning…
2020 visit to Angkor Wat
When Crystal and I visited Angkor Wat in 2007 there were thousands of other tourists present. We took the advice of a guidebook to start our day with sunrise at Bayon in order to stay one step ahead of the crowds but often still found ourselves surrounded by a throng. I’ve heard that the daily…