The Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh is set to host one of its largest annual events, Water Festival. Boat rowing contest will attract some ten thousand Cambodians from across the country to enjoy the festivity. Phnom Penh, as usual, will be crowded by throng of people. Meanwhile, it’s also the time for the city residents to take their holiday break, and make trip away or out of town. In Khmer language, it’s known as Bon Om Touk.

One of the most traditional parts of this national event/holiday is the country’s most consumed meal, namely rice. Made of special rice, Ambok is mixed with banana and coconut. Firstly, the rice is fried in the husk and then pounded with a giant pestle.

What’s else would you do aside from pay a visit to Cambodia’s magnificent, ancient Angkor Wat? What about Battambang?
Battambang is Cambodia’s second-largest city; it’s the main hub of the Northwest connecting the entire region with Phnom Penh and Thailand.

It’s tiny. Battambang itself has nothing special about it: the food was sub par at best, beggars abound, particularly in the market (this was the first time I had someone stand next to me constantly begging for money for the duration of my meal-make that 3 someones at a table of 6) and it’s a dirty place. It’s the journey there that is quite the experience. A bus from Siem Reap to Battambang costs just over $4 while taking a boat ride costs at least four times as much, but it is worth every penny.

‘Kampong’ is not just a prefix to make up any name of Cambodia’s provinces and places, but it also gives some meaning to the location. In most cases, the provinces and places with this ‘Kampong’ are connected to the rivers and streams, making way for locals to have the ‘Kampong’ for their use in their daily life. As the boat goes away, the pontoon stays. The ‘pontoon’ itself is somewhat equivalent to Khmer term ‘Kampong’. Here’s some travel note about a trip to Kampong Luang.

I just wanted to see Kampong Luang on my way to Phnom Pehn. It’s the floating village with about 10,000 inhabitants. Everybody lives on boats and the whole village moves up and down with the level of the water in the lake.

‘National Genocide Center’ is probably a newly-coined term to describe Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum by travelers Matt and Debz. It’s also widely known as Security Prison 21 (S-21).

Our first full day in Phnom Penh gave us a chance to venture out in a Tuk Tuk to the infamous “Killing fields” or “National Genocide Center”. I’m not sure which sounds less inviting but it was a worthwhile visit to get more educated on an era of unimaginable horror for hundreds of thousands of Khmer.

A blogger at THE THREE ALPHA TRAVEL wrote an interesting post about Cambodia, its tragedy history and the current political affairs, in particular with neighboring country Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The tourists in their majority are particularly careless and irresponsible giving out money to the street kids (that carry their street brothers and sisters) because they pity them.

…Just a week ago or so, Hun Sen accepted Thailand’s ex Prime Minister Shinawatra Thaksin as a political refugee and a personal friend. If Cambodians never really liked the Vietnamese, they really dislike the Thais and Thaksin is far from an angel.