Cambodia expat blog: Cambodia travel tips, advice, and info

How to get from the airport into Phnom Penh

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Lina Goldberg

If you’re looking for a great introduction to Cambodia, there’s no better way to do it than to negotiate your transfer to Phnom Penh from Phnom Penh International Airport (nee Pochentong). Be aware that the taxi situation can border on scammy, so it’s good to know what to expect before you go.

As in many cities, you’ll probably have a group of men shouting at you and trying to rope you into various transport options the minute you leave the arrivals hall. Take a deep breath and ignore them. You have three transportation options for Phnom Penh Airport transfers: taxi, tuk tuk, and moto.

Phnom Penh international airport arrivals

Welcome to Phnom Penh International Airport. Here’s how to leave.

Taking a taxi from Phnom Penh Airport

Taxis are the fastest, safest way to get from the airport into Phnom Penh, especially if you’re carrying lots of expensive equipment on you. You can either get an airport taxi or a private taxi.
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Phnom Penh metered taxis and taxi-booking apps

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Lina Goldberg

In the last few years metered taxis have become popular in Phnom Penh, offering a safer and sometimes less expensive ride than the alternatives. Unlike in many major cities, taxis need to be reserved in advance by phone or app, and can almost never be flagged down on the street. However a quick call or swipe can have a taxi to you in less than ten minutes. Here’s a rundown of the best taxi companies and taxi booking apps in Phnom Penh.

Metered taxis can be a safer and less expensive alternative way to get around Phnom Penh

Cambodia taxi apps

Uber has finally arrived in Cambodia, but the local alternatives are better established and often less expensive. PassApp Taxis, Exnet Taxi, and iTsumo are Uber-like taxi apps operating in Phnom Penh that allow you to book a metered tuk tuk, taxi, or SUV with the touch of a button (theoretically). Continue reading →

Kirirom National Park: Pine trees, fresh air, and dinosaurs

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Pete Ford

The most southerly point of the Cardamom Mountain range, Kirirom National Park rises from the flat rice fields and mango plantations, and the natural beauty found its pine trees, mountain lakes, wildflowers, and seemingly endless vistas make the journey to Cambodia’s first National Park worth the effort.

Kirirom National Park: Worth the Effort.

Halfway between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville along National Road 4, Kirirom National Park is 700 meters above sea level. The cooler temperatures and inviting odor of pine means that Kirirom offers the closest glimpse of the forests of Europe in Cambodia, while the piles of plastic garbage along the winding road help to remind you just where you actually are. Continue reading →

Phnom Penh public buses

Posted on December 18, 2017 by Pete Ford

In a city that now contains ride-hailing apps for tuk tuks and taxis, as well as the existing motorbike taxis and tuk tuks on most street corners, the bus system is still a welcome addition. Phnom Penh’s public bus system has recently expanded to eight routes, and finally offers a service that is useful to residents and visitors alike. Yes, they can be slower than other transport on the capital’s increasingly traffic-clogged streets, but the bus system is a much more comfortable way to endure a traffic jam.

Get on the bus!

Tickets for a single journey cost 1,500 riel, less that $0.40 USD, on air-conditioned new buses courtesy of China, and services run from 5:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. It’s worth noting that you will need a new ticket for each bus you get on, so make sure you have plenty of riel notes if planning to hop buses.

Bus stops are a mixture of covered seating and more simple signposts, and all contain the route map for that particular bus route. However, to get the most use from the system, download the free “Stops Near Me” app. Not only does it show the full route map for all buses and marks bus stops in English, but it also live tracks buses so you know when the next one is arriving. You can download the app for free from Google Play or Apple App Store.

Why you should take the bus:

The new buses are safer than motorbikes and tuk tuks, and remove the threat of bag/phone snatching.
You don’t need to negotiate prices.
The air conditioning offers a respite from the heat, noise, dust and smells of Phnom Penh streets.
It is by far the cheapest option, even for short journeys. A bus on Route 3 from the night market to Phnom Penh airport is only $0.40 cents, while a street tuk tuk will be $7 with some haggling, and an app-hailed taxi closer to $8.

The routes:

Route 1: Traverses vertically for much of the city, from the Cho Ray hospital on National Road 1 in Chbar Ampov (on the way to Vietnam), passes over Monivong bridge, up Monivong Boulevard, past the French Embassy and continues up along Highway 5 past the Cham muslim community and the Ammar Ebn Yasser mosque.

Route 2: Another vertical route, goes from Takhmao city in the south, up Norodom Boulevard, past Independence Monument and Wat Phnom, before heading west to northern Toul Kork neighbourhood at Aeon Mall 2.

Route 3: Heading east to west, this goes from the Riverside bus depot next to the Night Market (and where many major bus and minibus services leave and depart), past the Central Market and the Airport.

Route 4: Going past Wat Phnom, Central Market, and the Olympic Stadium, south of the airport it splits, with 4A going connecting with the Route 3 terminus south of the airport near National Road 3, and 4B going west to the the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), more commonly known at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and terminating at the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone.

Route 5: Starts behind Aeon Mall 1 and close to Diamond Island, before heading west along Mao Tse Tung Boulevard, passing just to the north of Russian Market, and then turning to the north, through Toul Kork and terminating at Aeon Mall 2.

Route 6: Begins near the airport, and heads east through Toul Kork, past the French Embassy, before heading north along National Road 6 and terminating a short walk from the Silk Island ferry.

Route 7: Heads south from National Road 5, through Toul Kork, past Royal University of Phnom Penh, before splitting, with 7A heading past the Olympic Stadium and Independence monument, terminating behind Aeon Mall 1, while 7B heads east over the Monivong bridge, terminating in Chbar Ampov.

Route 8: Starts where Route 6 terminates, by the Silk Island Ferry, then heads further north before turning west, past the construction for Cambodia’s hosting of the 2023 SEA Games and the city’s premier golf course Garden City, before crossing the LYP bridge and back south along National Road 5 to the Route 1 and Route 7 terminus.

Expat Kid Q&A: Ups and downs of parenting in Phnom Penh

Posted on November 23, 2017 by Lina Goldberg

In this expat series about raising kids in Cambodia, we talk to parents about the finer points of child rearing in the Kingdom of Wonder.

Phnom Penh residents: Anaïs and family.

French expat Anaïs Pagès Peeters has been living in Phnom Penh for eight years, with her Belgian husband and their children, who are now five and three years old. Anaïs is a freelance writer and runs a small business called globe-crawlers.com, that sells locally made accessories for babies and toddlers on the go. Move to Cambodia first got the low-down from Anaïs on expat kids in Phnom Penh in 2015, but she’s recently updated a few of her answers.

What’s the best part about raising kids in Cambodia?

I would have personally found it hard to leave my babies in a daycare, which would have been my only affordable choice in Europe. Here, knowing that my children are being taken care of by a loving and caring person in their own home environment, while still having some time to socialize with other children as well, is very reassuring.

Kids usually love to swim. It is swimming outside season pretty much every month of the year in Cambodia. The beach is only 3.5 hours away and is great for a weekend break.

Also, we have a really good social life! Our nanny doubles as a paid-by-the-hour baby-sitter when we need her outside her normal 9-6 shift. We usually go out twice a week, with friends over the weekend, and for a dinner date with my husband one night of the week. There are many really good restaurants in Phnom Penh, with cool new ones opening almost every month. A night out here is so cheap and so easy, so we’re really not depriving ourselves of that. Also, being part of an expat community means you usually have a sizable network of friends. People you probably wouldn’t have met if you had lived next door to them back home. I have some very strong friendships here and we’re really there for each other when things go wrong. It doesn’t replace family, but it’s quite similar.

There are more and more activities organized for babies and children. Your week can fill up pretty quickly taking them to these different places (baby groups, music classes for babies and toddlers, dancing, swimming, etc.)

There are more and more playgroups for babies and kids in Phnom Penh.

What’s the worst part about raising kids in Phnom Penh?

When you have a small baby, you can’t just take him in the carrier or put him in his stroller and go for a walk or grocery shopping. There is no walking over here (no sidewalk, sweltering heat). If you’re lucky you may have a driver and a car but the rest of us have to rely on (unreliable) tuk tuks, who ask for extortionate fares when you start comparing with, for example, the salary of your nanny who has important skills and responsibilities. Tuk tuks have the same inconveniences of a car (they get stuck in traffic) and of a motorbike (you are hot, breathe in dust and the exhaust fumes…) all in one without any of its advantages.

Schools are pretty expensive whereas back home it would be free. Also, is very hard to find an affordable house with a small garden unless you decide to live in Tuol Kork, Boeung Tumpun or other areas away from the center. Which is a shame because children love to run and play outside.

What are your favorite activities for kids in Phnom Penh?

Going to walk in front on the Royal Palace on a Sunday evening with my baby in her stroller and my toddler on his balance bike. One of the only place in town where we can have a short stroll.

If you could give one piece of advice to new expat parents in Phnom Penh, what would it be?

The poor health care system. I have recently found a great pediatrician, which is very reassuring. But I always worry that if something bad happens to my kids, I wouldn’t even really know where to go. I don’t even completely trust the two clinics (SOS and Royal Rattanak) that are considered to have standards closest to Western ones. Another worry is HOW to get to these places. There is no ambulance service and the few private ones that some hospitals have are always stuck in Phnom Penh’s terrible traffic. No one budges to let them go!

What has changed since your blog post in two years ago? Has your perspective on expat parenting changed?

It has changed a lot since I moved to BKK1, because it has made my life easier. Traffic and the extreme heat used to really get to me, so it so much easier to ne just a walking distance from shops and a biking distance to school and work.

I also don’t have babies anymore, there are slightly more things to do when you have preschoolers (school obviously, but also after-school activities, play-dates where you can drop your kids off etc) and I don’t have to sweat with a baby in a carrier or go crazy trying to push a stroller on non-existent sidewalks.

Review: La’Baab Restaurant, Phnom Penh

Posted on November 23, 2017 by Julia

Cambodian cuisine is delicious, interesting, and varied, but there are few sit-down restaurants in Phnom Penh that do Khmer food justice. Restaurants with a pleasant ambiance also tend to be tourist-oriented, and are likely to serve an incoherent array of over-sweetened curries and Thai food masquerading as Cambodian. Tastier and more authentic places often don’t invite long, lingering lunches—usually you’re sweating too much to want to stay past the last slurp of soup, anyway.

Doing Khmer cuisine justice.

Enter La’Baab. The newish restaurant isn’t immediately obvious. Located above Pharmacie de la Gare near Vattanac Tower, after climbing a few flights of stairs, guests find themselves in a wooden interior evocative of mid-1800s Battambang. At least, that’s what the Phnom Penh Post reported, and we’re willing to take them at their word. The menu, however, seems more influenced by the food of the Lower Mekong, where Cambodia’s east meets Vietnam’s south: lots of fish soups and curries, crunchy vegetables, and tart and fermented flavors.

Mid-1800s Battambang, apparently.

We will overlook this minor ontological confusion given La’Baab’s many gustatorial pleasures—and the fact that it’s simply a damn fine place to sit and sip a lemongrass-infused limeade. And as often happens, limeade leads to lunch, and we ordered a selection of dishes off a menu that was varied enough to content a timid newcomer or an old Cambodia hand.

Since we like to flatter ourselves that we fit into the latter category, we eschewed the spring rolls and chose a selection of more obscure dishes: a subtle but tasty hemp and crab paste soup, and a spread of fresh vegetables surrounding a pot of the the warm, pungent fermented fish known as maam, for starters. Two vegetable dishes, wing beans and lotus root, were both prepared in exemplary fashion, still crunchy and sweet but warm and fragrant with aromatics.

Although less adventurous, the amok was an outstanding example of a dish that is exceedingly popular but too often uninspired. La’Baab’s fish amok was perfectly balanced, the curry’s palm sugar sweetness offset by the slight bitterness of the noni leaves, a defining ingredient that is regularly omitted in the Kingdom’s more tourist-oriented restaurants. Another standout was the mam, a dish more popular in Cambodian homes than restaurants. Milder than prahok, here braised mam was served with fatty pork belly, adding an extra rich layer to the sweet, fermented fish.

Like a Scotch egg, but Cambodian.

One in our party was a chef who, having worked at high-end restaurants before moving to Cambodia, exists in a state of perpetual horror at how restaurant food is presented here. Finally, at La’Baab, he was able to eat a meal without complaint. Like the restaurant itself, the dishes have the right balance of stylish without crossing into pretentiousness, even in the case of the mini-Scotch eggs, made from hard-boiled quail’s eggs wrapped in prahet and coated in green-tinted puffed ambok.

All of us were in agreement that we would be eager to return to La’Baab and dive deeper into the menu, as well as checking out the breakfast specials, which include Vietnamese specialties like com tam and cha trung thit. Or just heading back to relax with a coffee and drink in the restaurant’s fabulous wooden interior, beneath bobbing clusters of traditional fish-traps, gazing out at the futuristic Vattanac Tower—the perfect mix of old and new.

Dishes priced between $4 and $8.

La’Baab Restaurant

Open daily, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
81 E2 Preah Monivong Blvd (above Pharmacie de la Gare), Daun Penh, Phnom Penh
T: 012 955 661
facebook.com/LabaabResto

This post was a tag-team effort by Julia Wallace and Lina Goldberg.

The 10 best movies set in Cambodia

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Lina Goldberg

Today’s blog post is from Phnom Penh cinema buff and film critic, Niall Crotty, who for many years ran a Phnom Penh movie house.

Film was once a hugely important and respected medium in Cambodia, with no less than King Norodom Sihanouk himself writing, directing and starring in too many movies to mention during the 50s and 60s. After the devastation of the Khmer Rouge period, cinema is making a comeback in Cambodia with new multi-screen movie theaters, 3D and 4D screens, and even a Cambodian Oscar nomination. But there have been international productions throughout the intervening years that have been set in, or have used Cambodia as part of their story. Here are some that you should be watching.

The Killing Fields is based on the story of two journalists’ experiences during the Khmer Rouge era, Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg.

The Killing Fields (1984)

The quintessential movie to see about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge period. The film, while covering the effects of Pol Pots dictatorship concentrates on the real story of friendship between American journalist Sydney Schanberg and his Cambodian translator Dith Pran. If you see one movie about Cambodia, make it this one.

Swimming to Cambodia (1987)

Jonathan Demme directed this filmed version of Spalding Gray’s monologue, covering his trip to Southeast Asia to create the role of the U.S. Ambassador’s aide in The Killing Fields movie. Though essentially an hour and a half of a one-man monologue, Gray’s witty stories are mesmerizing and very funny and make the film a very enjoyable if unusual watch.

Lord Jim (1965)

This adaptation of the Joesph Conrad novel was perhaps the first big foreign film to be made in Cambodia and features several scenes set amongst the temples of Angkor. Production was beset by problems throughout, leaving star Peter O’Toole to describe the experience of filming in Cambodia as “sheer hell.” The real Dith Pran, one of the main characters of The Killing Fields actually served as a translator during production.

Same, Same But Different is the true story of Benjamin Prüfer’s unconventional romance with a Cambodian woman.

Same Same But Different (2009)

The true story of Benjamin Prüfer and Sreykeo Solvan, a backpacker and a bar girl who find love in Cambodia against the odds. This German-made film (in a mixture of German, English and Khmer with subtitles) stars David Kross of The Reader fame. A compelling love story with some great shots of modern Cambodia this film received a mixed response locally after the casting of Thai leading lady Apinya Sakuljaroensuk as Cambodian Sreykeo.

Two Brothers (2004)

French director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s family adventure movie set in French Colonial 1920s Cambodia features Guy Pearce, but its main stars are two tiger brothers, who get separated as cubs and go on to very different fates before being re-united. An old fashioned and charming adventure story, this movie features beautiful cinematography and amazing use of its animal stars. One for all the family.

The plot may be lacking, but City of Ghosts offers some beautiful shots of Phnom Penh before development started.

City of Ghosts (2002)

Matt Dillon, bewitched by the seedier side of Cambodia after several visits, wrote directed and starred in this attempt at modern noir set in a gritty early nineties Phnom Penh. Roping in Hollywood buddies, James Caan and Gérard Depardieu amongst others, the film also features several well known expat and Khmer faces in supporting cameo roles. Not a fantastic movie by any stretch, but interesting to see how much Phnom Penh has changed in 10 years and if nothing else for the strange pleasure of seeing James Caan speaking, and indeed singing, in Khmer!

Wish You Were Here (2012)

This recent Australian drama follows four friends whose Cambodian holiday takes a very dark path, and then the after-effects of this on their lives back in Australia. Joel Edgerton leads the cast in this edgy but gripping mystery thriller. While featuring a great deal of Cambodia, it doesn’t leave best impression of the country (the fact that they specifically label some of the movies bad guys as Vietnamese gangsters isn’t really enough of a get-out clause). But it’s worth a look as a compelling modern mystery with some impressive performances.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

The film that first brought Angelina Jolie to Cambodia, this video game adaptations features lengthy action sequences filmed around Angkor and particularly Ta Prohm. While not a hit with a lot of critics, the movie was a huge box office success and has led to several sequels (though no more using Cambodian backdrops). Tomb Raider was a huge deal for tourism (many still reference this film when exploring the temples) and while it’s nothing special, it’s actually a hugely fun adventure romp in which the stars are clearly aware of the silliness and seem to be running with it.

The Missing Picture tells one man’s story of the Khmer Rouge era in an entirely different way.

The Missing Picture (2013)

When this movie from seasoned French-Khmer director Rithy Panh got nominated in the shortlist of the Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category, many were surprised. It’s the first such nomination ever for Cambodia and given the lack of much home-grown film-making in the country, really ushers in a new era for Khmer filmmakers. Rithy, who has been quietly making films in the Kingdom for decades, based this part-documentary, part-clay figure animation on his own story during the Pol Pot era. It’s a melancholy meditation on loss and reflection and a worthy watch for those who want to explore the subject of that era beyond The Killing Fields.

The Gate (2014)

Based on the memoir of the same name by François Bizot, this French language movie has not yet received a general release but it is imminent. The only Westerner to have survived imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge, Bizot’s story is likely to be a compelling one. The movie was filmed in the Kingdom, mainly in Battambang, during early 2014.

Yes, there are road rules in Cambodia

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Pete Ford

Confronted by cars, motorbikes and tuk tuks on the roads of Cambodia operating with little apparent appreciation of internationally established road etiquette, one could be led to believe that the country does not have much in the way of traffic rules.

You wouldn’t know it, but Cambodia is not short on traffic laws.

Driving against oncoming traffic, making new ‘lanes’ at traffic lights, parking where one pleases, and my favourite, pulling out into traffic on a motorbike at full speed without looking to see if anything might be coming, are all everyday occurrences on the increasingly crowded roads. And they are all against the law.
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