Akshay, originally from Mumbai of India, has an interesting post with some stunning still images of the Cambodian capital.
I’ve found my favorite way to travel in Phnom Penh is by cyclos. They’re the opposite of cycle-rickshaw in India as they pretty much resemble a wide wheel chair attached to a cycle. You just take a seat and pay the driver to wheel around the city as you bounce and laugh as the driver pedals you the congested city streets.
In 2001, Reyum Institute started a research project on paintings in Wats (Buddhist temples). The aim of the project was to photograph the mural paintings found in most Wats in Cambodia as well as collecting data about the temples through interviews. San Phalla, who just graduated from the Department of Archaeology in Phnom Penh, was the first researcher to conduct the field research. Because most of temples tend to replace old paintings by recovering them with new ones, or simply knocking down the buildings themselves, we were faced with the urgency to document as many temples as possible instead of studying each of them in details. Thus we could not study each of them in details.
For more than six years, from 2001 to 2006, San Phalla and other fellow young researchers Tho Pisey, Thon Sopheak visited more than 600 Wats in all over Cambodia and took over 20,000 photographs of temple paintings along with brief notes on each temple. Our choice to document prove to be a good one as today several temples we surveyed have been knocked down and replaced with new structures without any documentations.
Most paintings found in Wats depict Buddhist themes such as Buddha’s last life before entering the Nirvana, or his previous lives, known as Jataka (ten last previous births). But more specifically, there are also scenes from the Reamker (Khmer version of the Ramayana) as well as popular themes such as local folktales.
In 2004, when we started to review the collected data, we came to realize that not only we should organize it so that it can be accessed and used by scholars and the general public, but also the idea of compiling a book and mounting an exhibition based on the photographs came along. The book and exhibition would raise awareness about the topic among the general public. And it is our hope that the data we collected so far would contribute as a resource for further research and advance our understanding of Cambodian culture.
We would like to take this opportunity to express our profound gratitude to all those who have given us supports and encouragement. We wish to thank also the Toyota foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation, the Prince Claus Fund for their financial support to this project.
In recent post of a photoblogger at mythicaldude, you’ll find some black and white pictures of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, taken in heat of April.
Its too damned hot to be out in the mid-day sun right now in Cambodia, so other than a couple of hours of early morning or sunset light when the temperature is tolerable, I’ve been walking around many of the cool and shady alleys here in the Kingdom’s capital city.
What Phnom Penh looks like two years ago? There are probably just too many things to describe. But here we go:
I spent yesterday exploring Phnom Penh in a leisurely and somewhat disorganised fashion and got to see a few interesting things. Cambodia is exploding at the moment - more and more people are coming here and more money is being ploughed into everything so the city seems to have a greater energy than it did when I was here almost two years ago.
Blogger at ‘An MSW in Cambodia’ has an interesting post of her visit to Sovanna Phum, an independent Khmer art association in Phnom Penh. There, she enjoyed the show the treasures of Khmer culture (Shadow Puppet Theatre, Classical Dance, Folk Dance, Traditional Music, Theatre and Circus). In the post, you will also find pictures and video clips of the performance.
Sovanna Phum is really one of the best places to see traditional arts here in Cambodia. Tickets for the night were only $5.00. My favorite part about the organization, however, was that after the show had started, they allow kids to come in from the streets free of charge and fill any seats that were empty. So many time (including in the US) if you are a child that does not come from a middle or upper class family– you never get to really see the arts.
The Cambodian capital has it all for local residents, visitors, and recently for travel writers. Cambodia is not only about Angkor Wat and other ancient temples in Siem Reap, but also about a burstling capital where business and culture take place.
In 1657 words, STUART EMMRICH of the New York Times wrote on the country’s largest city beginning with a meaningful headline: In Phnom Penh, Hopefulness Replaces Despair. The reporter goes on to compare Phnom Penh to little Paris of France and even to next Prague, the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic.
In fact, after a few days in this city, you notice that Phnom Penh has something of a “next Prague” vibe about it — a place where many young people from around the world, heady with excitement and the thrill of the unknown, are coming to reinvent themselves.
Following this, Ksenia Glebova has a new article, titled The Phnom Penh experience. Unlike the New York Times article, Ksenia put it this way: “Phnom Penh is like the Berlin of South East Asia – a hectic but fascinating construction site, slowly coming to terms with layers of turbulent history”.
Photographer Claire Gray has a portrait of woman prisoner taken at Toul Sleng genocide museum aka S21 in Phnom Penh. You can, of course, contribute your critique.
tathei aka Jonathan, an amateur photographer has a great set of pictures he took in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.
this set is dedicated to people in Cambodia - no matter how harsh your life in Cambodia, i could see that you guys really enjoy life. it’s something we have to learn for life long. i will not forget everyone’s smile in this lovely country.
Taking a look at Cambodian capital Phnom Penh from the space is made possible with Google Earth. A Cambodian blogger in the U.S. posted a series of screenshots of Phnom Penh’s most interesting places to visit: Independence Monument, Wat Phnom, Royal Palace, Chaktomuk Theater, National Museum & Veal Men, Sisowath Quay, Central Market, Senate, Le Royal Hotel, Olympic Stadium, Tuol Sleng Museum, Boeng Kak, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Institute of Foreign Languages, Chroy Changva Bridge, Building and Tonle Bassac Theater, Sorya Shopping Center, Municipal Water Supply Department, and Phnom Penh International Airport.
Via Telegraph Blogs, Online Travel Editor Francisca Kellett wrote ‘Sun and rain in Phnom Penh‘:
Today, though, the skies have darkened and there’s a weird sort of brittle pressure in the air.
We’ve just arrived in Phnom Penh, the sprawling capital, and a hot wind is wafting in off the Tonle Sap river. The rain will be a welcome blessing; maybe the air will loose its cloying stickiness for a few hours. It’s been an incredible six days. We arrived in the staggering city of Siem Reap last Monday.
Blogger at Holding Hands in Phnom Penh lets us know that world traveling cyclists, Ben and Gen, are now in Cambodia after making a long trip to travel the world.
Ben and Gen are cyclists and are 10 months into a world tour. They estimate that they will be traveling by bicycle for another 2 years before getting back home to Quebec in Canada. We met through a website called Warm Showers, which I joined after finishing my own bicycle tour from England to Gibraltar, and as I watched them rolling away this morning, down the road towards the sea, I was reminded of my own promise to myself that I would do another, longer, cycle tour someday.