As American Starbucks hasn’t yet arrived in Cambodia, Australian-owned Gloria Jean’s Coffees established late last year its first cafe in Boeung Keng Kang I district, one of Phnom Penh’s peaceful areas.

The international coffee and coffeehouse chain with stores in over 30 countries is

…dedicated to providing a comfortable atmosphere for our Gloria Jean’s family. Whether it’s your morning coffee, after-work pick-me-up, or meeting friends in the evening we want you to come in, relax in our comfy chairs, and enjoy every sip of your Gloria Jean’s coffee!

Strikingly, on its internet site, you can get all the latest news about the cafe through both Twitter and Facebook Page.

NataRaj Yoga opened its doors as Cambodia’s first yoga studio in August 2004, under the independent initiative of 25-year-old Canadian teacher, Isabelle Skaburskis.

And since then it has become an integral part of Phnom Penh life, offering a nurturing environment, responsible instruction, and strong community for Cambodians and expatriates alike, through public classes and partnerships with Non-Governmental Organizations.

More info about Yoga classes.

#52, Street 302
Boeng Keng Kang I
P.O. Box 401
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The Phnom Penh Post says so: entering a world of weirdness at the Cambodian Cultural Village.

The big question hovering over Siem Reap’s most bizarre tourist attraction, the Cambodian Cultural Village, located along the Airport Road 6, is what ever happened to the remains of the unknown UNTAC soldier once depicted in the museum walking out of a local drinking den with a hot little bar girl in his arms?

The Washington Post has more and more news stories about Cambodia, including lifestyle and travel.
Family vacation includes Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia:
VILLAGE LIFE: In a small village along Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, an elderly woman called to us in French and invited us to taste the sweets she was making. Then another person invited us to her porch, where we watched a man with a fever being treated by cupping. (Hot cups are attached to the body, allowing the welts to heal the fever.) I also visited a school.

www.tuolsleng.com is a website dedicated solely to Phnom Penh’s genocide museum. It contains photographs of people who were tortured and killed under the Khmer Rouge regime. According to the site, there are 114 photographs from the Pol Pot’s secret prison, also known as Security Prison “S-21″.

When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979 the S-21 prison staff fled, leaving thousands of written and photographic records. Altogether more than 6,000 photographs were left; the majority, however, have been lost or destroyed.

Currently the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, which is located within the former prison grounds, has the original negatives and a catalog of all 6,000 remaining negatives. Cornell University also has one of the catalogs, and the DCCam Project has also incorporated scanned versions of the images into their database, as well as Yale University.

In 1997 an American photographer/researcher identified and located the prison photographer, Nhem Ein, who had been living in a Khmer Rouge stronghold since 1979. Since meeting Nhem Ein, many other former prison staff have been identified and interviewed, adding to our knowledge of this piece of awful history.

Until recently, the museum becomes a major tourism site for those who visit the capital city.

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.