It has appeared in the wire news service such as Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Associated Press, and today CNNGO has a piece on Anlong Veng, small town of Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, as a new historical tourist site.
CNNGo’s Chris Aderson wrote: Coming soon to Cambodia: Khmer Rouge tourism.

• Plans unveiled for tourist area in Anlong Veng, by Phnom Penh Post’s Thet Sambath
• Cambodia to preserve Khmer Rouge sites for tourism: AFP

Peaceful life in Kampot

Kampot river

Kampot life

The New York Times’s Daniel Robinson has an interesting article about traveling to Preah Vihear temple.

Preah Vihear Temple — the name means Mountain of the Sacred Temple — is the most spectacularly situated of all Angkorian monuments. Built from the ninth to the 12th centuries atop a peak of the Dangkrek Mountains, it occupies a triangular plateau rising from the Thailand border to a prow-shaped promontory.

“We continued to see many beautiful carvings in the inner buildings of Banteay Srei. Our guide continued to explain many stories depicted on the walls to us. And although the weather was hot and the sun was shining very brightly, we were not bothered as we immerse in the stories of the mythical creatures and were amazed by the beautiful carvings that surrounded us.”

True to its beauty and name, Banteay Srei earns its reputation as one of the most well-carved temples among many others. 10th century Cambodian temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva.

Large Boeung Kak Lake in Phnom Penh is being filled as part city development: Cambodia

Also related:
The Battle for Boeung Kak Lake by Far Eastern Economic Review’s Ron Gluckman

This set of photographs of Siem Reap’s floating village tells a story of how travelers see the life on the lake.

The floating forest has inhabitants like birds and monkeys, and during the rainy season when the water level rises, monkeys will tend to swim across the water body and get to safer land. The unfortunate thing is if the monkey carries a baby with it, it is likely the baby would drown.

On a trip to Phnom Penh from Bangkok, a traveler at ‘flashbacks, time after time’ puts some thoughts on the visit to The Place, the Russian Market, a North Korean restaurant, the Grand Palace, the Silver Pagoda, and the Killing Fields.

Also, there’s an interesting thing about a new North Korean restaurant in the Cambodian capital opened soon after Pyongyang, an oldest and only North Korean Restaurant, was closed recently.

Love Cambodia. We had lunch at a restaurant, a Korean restaurant, to be more specific a North Korean restaurant. Yep. There were actually a lot of those in Phnom Penh. Word on the street is, the waitresses in their hamboks, moved down to Cambodia to serve North Korean food… and they aren’t allowed to leave the restaurant. They live upstairs and can’t go outside. What a life. I asked one of the waitresses a couple questions in Korean. She basically felt sorry for me, because my family was from South Korea and that she missed Pyongyang a lot.

Chelsea at Wanderlust and Wanderlost reflected on her visit to Cambodia. In this post, it’s all about why Cambodia is the most frustrating country the traveler has visited.

1. Corruption: Cambodia is one of the worlds most corrupt countries. In a study done by Transparency International, Cambodia was given a rating of 2, 10 meaning not corrupt, zero meaning totally corrupt. There were only 13 countries that received worse scores…

2. Scams/Getting Ripped off: People are always trying to make money any way that they can, and a lot of them resort to scamming tourists to get it. In places like Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, Westerners are viewed more as walking ATMs…

3. Children: Children are recruited early to start selling (although begging is a more accurate term) to the tourists. In Angkor, children as young as four years old approach you, trying to impress you with their English and knowledge about other countries…

4. Backpackers/Tourists: I won’t lump all backpackers into a negative group, because I am one, but there are plenty of tourists that come to Cambodia without understanding the situation of the country…

5. Humidity: This isn’t Cambodia’s fault, but I really hate humidity! So does my hair…

Update: November 14th, 2009
5 beautiful things about Cambodia

Some more pictures of renovated Central Market (Phsar Thmey) can be found here. Early, Cambopedia also linked to a blog post of French-styled architecture built in the Cambodian capital.

‘hoebian’ at ‘There And Back Again’ blog has a post of beautiful pictures of Cambodian silk, taken at Angkor Silk Farm. The photos will walk you through to understand how Khmer silk cloth is made.