The Southeast Asia Travel Specialists Since 1999
What follows is a brief account and selection of photos of our Cambodia boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang. I think we first ran this Cambodia boat trip way back in 2000. It was a very different country in those days and the journey across the Tonle Sap and up the Sangkar River to Battambang was an adventurous…
A few images of some of the hard-working women in Phsa Prahok, Battambang’s fish market, taken over the course of several recent visits, To point out that topping and tailing fish all day long, every day, is extremely laborious, dirty and tiring would be rather stating the obvious and certainly a very tough way of earning a living. We can…
Been visiting Trat Province Thailand and its most famous island, Koh Chang, for 25 years now and sure it’s changed a lot. Most places would do in a quarter of a century and now it has myriad resorts, car ferries, 24-hour electricity, sealed roads and Tesco Lotus stores – none of which it had in 1990 – but having just…
Traditionally the kingdom’s 2nd largest city, the western town of Battambang Cambodia has surely been overtaken by now by booming Siem Reap and although still relatively prosperous from the Province’s fine farming land, (indeed it’s sometimes known as ‘Cambodia’s rice bowl’), it has been largely bypassed by the country’s tourism boom. Well until recently that is but these days Battambang’s…
Prasart Ta Prom, at UNESCO World Heritage-listed Angkor. Cambodia’s famous, so-called, ‘Tomb Raider Temple’ with its giant trees and sprawling roots is certainly one of the vast Angkor complex’s most famous and photogenic sites and so consequently, it does see a lot of visitors and in the high season particularly can get rather busy. A regular, classic itinerary would have…
Koh Chang Thailand, located in the country’s eastern, Trat Province, is the largest island after Phuket and Samui but, though development has proceeded rapidly over the last decade, it remains still much more low-key than either of its larger competitors. Resorts now succeed each other one after the other all the way down the West coast sandy beaches and bars,…
We’ll round up our Cambodia boat journey series on this highly picturesque river with a selection of typical Sangkar River landscapes. We do feel that photos, or at least our photos, don’t really do the scenery justice though. It’s not like trying to capture a beach, mountain or say a sunset – these are such broad vistas and 360-degree landscapes…
Following on from our bird-life post here’s a selection of some of the everyday, local life on the Sangkar River we’ve photographed on recent trips along this spectacular, picturesque and unusual river in western Cambodia: The lower stretch of the river, closer to the great Tonle Sap Lake sees the largest fluctuation in water levels between rainy and dry season…
A few photos of some of the spectacular bird-life on the Sangkar River we’ve come across on recent boat trips down from Siem Reap to Battambang. (Would have a lot more for you but since it’s tricky getting sharp shots of fast-moving birds from a heavily vibrating boat we had to delete most of them!?) The Sangkar River begins in…
Giant gnarled trees rise from huge piles of sandstone blocks; spreading roots and sprawling vines cloak massive walls, dense foliage obscures crumbling towers and moss and lichen conceal intricate carvings. Cambodia’s Beng Melea; chaotic, decaying ancient ruins and rampant tropical vegetation is a perfect synthesis of man’s handiwork and untamed nature yet, ultimate[y, a complete antithesis of what it was…
A bit rushed today so minimal text, (you’ll be glad to hear), and a few photos we came across in a far corner of our hard drive – kind of a computer equivalent of down the back of the sofa we guess. These are some of our favourite Apsaras of UNESCO World Heritage Angkor Wat carvings at with an estimated…
A bit rushed today -no time to write a blog post – so we’ll fall back on a few classic dawn at Angkor Wat pictures, which you can never have too many of (can you)? Must have watched the dawn rise over the famous silhouette at least 30 times but it never gets boring! Different time of year, different weather,…
Ta Keo Temple at Angkor – often overlooked and never gets too many stars in the guide book ratings yet it is a very impressive monument and one that you can generally visit without fighting your way through noisy crowds of Koreans for a pleasant change. (Or Chinese, French, Russians whatever – don’t mean to be rude about Koreans in…
Just about to fly from Bangkok back to Chiang Mai after finishing a recent Cambodia Overland tour (but more of that in a later post) so, since we don’t have time to write much, here are a few photographs of the bustling alleys of Phnom Penh’s Psa Tuol Tompoung – better known of course as the Russian Market. It was…
A selection of pix from our recent Cambodia family tour, Ruined Cities and Tropical Islands. First up – a pavement haircut for Zach who quickly realised Cambodia was going to be too hot for a ponytail so…Barber did charge the ‘Barang’ rate of $3, claiming he’d never had to cut so much hair before – fair enough I guess!? Next,…
To conclude our recent Cambodia Overland tour here’s a few pictures from the final section – the road to Pailin – which takes us from Battambang to the Thai border. The road is now more or less complete thanks to funding from the Chinese government and the 0 kilometres or so is easily done in 2 hours including coffee break….
The Road to Battambang. Well, strictly speaking by boat across the Tonle Sap and up the Sangkar River followed by a drive across country to Battambang. We usually do the whole journey from Siem Reap to Battambang by boat but water levels being low at this time of year meant that whilst we left Siem Reap by boat we actually…
Another excellent and interesting Cambodian overland trip yesterday – the road to Siem Reap in western Cambodia from the cpaital Phnom Penh. First stop was Skuon for the always popular deep-fried ‘tarantulas’. Popular photo subject that is – not always such a popular snack and this time the fried crickets won out over the spiders hands down. Problem with the…
Must have visited the ruined Ta Nei Temple some 20 times and am yet to see another visitor there! Moreover, it’s a great little Jayavarman VII site in a picturesque forest setting with some interesting carvings remaining. There’s no road to this temple making it, along with Banteay Tom, one of the rare reasonably-sized Angkor sites that you can’t actually…
“Though the identity of Bakheng Temple (or Phnom Bakheng) is today firmly established, the place hardly gets the respect it deserves…..Late every afternoon, just before sunset, crowds troop up the hill, on foot or by elephant at 20 dollars a ride. Then they climb the temple’s steps to the standing room only, plaza-like upper tier. …….Then they throng back down…