Category Archives: Travel

Importing a Car to Cambodia from Abroad: Is it Worth it?

Hummer_h3_02042011779

Let’s say you’ve been looking around for a vehicle at locally and are getting nowhere. Maybe you have an old girl sitting at home under a tarp that you miss terribly. Maybe on that jaunt home last time you fell…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , ,

Life as a Baby Duck Fetus Eater

baby-duck-egg-siem-reap-cambodia+1152_12825360218-tpfil02aw-30340

“You see that dish? That’s dog meat,” said Raksume who was standing me dinner at his family’s palm leaf shack on the edge of the village. “Oh” I said. And then, “Hey, where’s your dog?”. Raksume gestured unceremoniously towards the…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Food, Travel | Tagged , , ,

The Best Laid Plans of Bats and Dams – A Day Off in the Provinces

fruit_bats1

May 1st: International Labour Day when workers of the world unite and wave socialist banners, bearded ale quaffers watch young maidens prance around a phallus with ribbons, andeveryday folk get a day out of the office. In Cambodia it’s a…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , , , , ,

Down and Out in South East Asia by Alex Watts

In the sequel to bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London, failed chef and hack Lennie Nash sets off to eat his way through SE Asia, with a half-baked plan to buy a restaurant. Along the way,…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , ,

Driving Monks to the Beach

beach monks

I sat down to begin a day of work in the small office of the NGO where I volunteer. It was the day after Khmer New Year, when all through the pagoda, not a creature was stirring – not even…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , , , ,

How to Win Friends in the Bar Game

TCPrintLogo2013_UK

So, you’re bored of the 9-5 drudgery of life in the civilized western world of say the UK, USA or Australia. The weather sucks, the women are fat and gobby and the price of an unhealthy lifestyle is astronomically expensive….

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , ,

All Out of (Cooking) Gas

cooking gas

While popping a batch of popcorn for a lunchtime snack and with a dinner party at our home only hours away, I make the startling discovery that we were really, really low on propane. As in,almost completely out of gas….

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Phnom Penh, Travel | Tagged , , ,

Cycling Through Kandal Province

skip kandal1

Bumping on my mountain bike along a rock-strewn path beneath the Japanese Bridge leading into Kandal province, I heard a bizarre lowing sound from behind. Assuming it was some goofball Cambodian guy on a motorbike with one of the amusing…

Posted in Commentary, Travel | Tagged , , ,

Raving and Games in the Rice Fields – New Year in the Provinces

kny2

New Year comes but once a year, well, 3 times if you live in Cambodia. Finally the last one is done and dusted, ready for the rains, which made their timely appearance the day after. Most expats welcome the holiday,…

Posted in Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , , ,

Going Batty in Battambang – Life in the Provinces

bats_top_pic

The last couple of articles I have written for this esteemed website could be perceived by some as being a little cynical or perhaps at times even a touch vitriolic. To even the score the following story is nicer: a…

Posted in Commentary, Expat Life, Travel | Tagged , , , ,