Review: Rosy Guesthouse, Siem Reap

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Lina Goldberg

Rosy Guesthouse is a family-run guesthouse next to the Siem Reap River offering a variety of lovely rooms and excellent food. After arriving from a long bus trip, I wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a comfy bed. I was rewarded with exactly that — and more.

The outside of Rosy Guesthouse, Siem Reap

Your new home in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

The last time I was in Siem Reap I ate a lot of my meals at Rosy Guesthouse, and appreciated the homey atmosphere and friendly staff and owners. At the time, I had thought it was more of a backpacker joint, so when I was shown to my deluxe room on this visit, I was pleasantly surprised. Featuring free WiFi, cable TV, a DVD player (you can borrow movies from reception), hot water, air-conditioning and nice touches like Khmer shadow puppet photography on the walls, the place was more flashpacker than backpacker. This was on the high end of the $8-$30 room spectrum, so they probably have some not-as-lovely rooms for $8 (with shared rather than private bathrooms).

A common area at Rosy Guesthouse Siem Reap

Relax after a grueling trip to the temples (and they are grueling) in one of Rosy’s common areas.

They also have a couple of nice common areas — downstairs next to the restaurant is a pool table that customers can use and upstairs there’s a breezy lounge area with comfy chairs. Were I traveling and not working, I could imagine coming here to relax after a few gruelling hours tromping around the temples. And if you are looking to visit the temples, the tuk tuk drivers outside Rosy Guesthouse are excellent; I’ve used them many times and have no complaints (which is, frankly, rare).

The restaurant at Rosy Guesthouse serves from 7AM to 11PM — they’ve a full menu of Western and Khmer dishes, but their burgers, salads and sandwiches are where they excel. I’m a fan of their juicy beef burger and their tender chicken burger, both with extra cheese and bacon, of course. Prices in the restaurant are inexplicably reasonable, a chicken ceasar salad costs $2.75. They also have a bar with Anchor on tap and a pool table. This week they are also opening a children’s playroom, making the place more of a community hub than ever.

Deluxe room at Rosy Guesthouse Siem Reap

Time for a snooze at Rosy Guesthouse, Siem Reap.

I’ve no more praises left to sing about Rosy Guesthouse, but would highly recommend it as a relaxed place to stay in Siem Reap. Reservations are a good idea, especially in high season. You can make a booking at Rosy Guesthouse on Agoda.

Rosy Guesthouse
Achar Sva Street, Slor Kam Village (Along the Siem Reap River), Siem Reap
T: 063 965 059
rosyguesthouse.com

Time to get a phone

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Marissa Carruthers

Marissa Carruthers is a freelance journalist who, six weeks ago, left behind life in the UK for the sun and smiles of Cambodia. In her weekly column, she will be sharing the ups and downs of settling into life in Phnom Penh as a new expat.

I’m finally the proud owner of a Cambodian phone.

A selection of phones and phone cards in Cambodia.

Cambodia calling…getting a phone and phone credit in Cambodia

After weeks of getting by on Skype, instant messaging and emails, I caved in and got round to getting a Cambodian number.

It was made much more complicated than it should have been by the fact that one of the security guards at my apartment, who has kindly taken me under his wing despite communication problems, gave me one of a handful of SIM cards he keeps tucked away in the back of one of the five phones he juggles.

He wanted me to use it with the iPhone I’d brought with me from the UK. The SIM card didn’t fit. No problem. Off he went on his moped and returned five minutes later with it cut to size.

Next problem: it didn’t work. I needed to get my phone unlocked so off he took me on the back of his bike to a series of roadside phone shops on Street 380 to sort it out.

I’m not sure what happened after that. After handing my phone from person to person, several SIM cards being inserted and lots of confused faces, we left and my phone still didn’t work.

So yesterday, I decided to brave the big bad mobile phone world alone and returned to Street 380, complete with my passport, which I’d been told I’d need to get a phone, to complete my mission.

A half hour later, and no passport needed, I’d selected a network from the eight or nine that operate here, picked out my number from endless reams of numbers, which start at $6 and rise depending on how “lucky” each number is and bought a new Nokia phone for $17.

I’m still not too sure how to get credit on it but I’m sure by the time you read this, I’ll have figured it out.

[Ed. note: You can get iPhones unlocked in Phnom Penh at Citifone (21 Kampuchea Krom, near Central Market). Phone credit can be purchased at most phone shops or small sidewalk shops selling beverages. You’ll often see phone cards hanging in plastic bags, or a sign with a list of phone numbers — this means they sell credit. If you are using Cellcard, you may have to ask for Mobitel, Cellcard’s old name.]

Read detailed instructions of how to get a phone and SIM card in Move to Cambodia, including advice on how to get the cheapest SIM cards and which carrier to choose.

Tuk Tuk Trials

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Marissa Carruthers

Marissa Carruthers is a freelance journalist who, five weeks ago, left behind life in the UK for the sun and smiles of Cambodia. In her weekly column, she will be sharing the ups and downs of settling into life in Phnom Penh as a new expat.

Phnom Penh’s Wat Langka, as seen from a moving tuk tuk.

Endless hours have been wasted trawling the streets of Phnom Penh in a tuk tuk, the driver aimlessly ambling round hoping to stumble across where I want to be in this sprawling city.

What should be a short, five-minute journey down the road suddenly turns into 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. At night, lost in a city I’m still getting to know, panic starts to bubble and a voice in my head whispers: “you’re never going to get home.”

Of course I do every time, thanks to the many moto men and tuk tuk drivers who are asked for directions along the way. Some will have sent us on a wild goose chase, others one step closer to home and as soon as I see a familiar sight a sense of relief washes over me.

Frustrated and desperate, I started carrying round a map. I’d show the driver where I wanted to be, slowly tracing the route with my finger to make sure he definitely understood.

“Yes, yes,” he’d say each time, nodding his heads with an authority that gave me complete confidence that he knew exactly where they were going. I’d jump in and soon discover he didn’t.

Exasperated, I relayed my frustration to an expat who’s been living in the city for 18 months. “Yeah, most of them don’t know street names,” he said. “But they’ll never let you know that.”

It turns out they go by landmarks – especially wats – and it turns out that luck is on my side because I live pretty close to Wat Langka, one of the city’s oldest temples and a place that every tuk tuk driver I come across is familiar with.

Since then, getting lost has become a thing of the past and I’ve not once had a problem getting home or anywhere else.

Read more about getting around by tuk tuk from Move to Cambodia and never get lost in again.

Expat Q&A: Learn Khmer and on having ‘Cambodia days’

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Lina Goldberg
Robina Hanley

Bina says: Take Khmer lessons!

In this series we talk to Cambodia expats about what they wish they had known when they first moved to Cambodia that they know now.

This week we talk to Robina Hanley, who works as a curator at the McDermott Gallery in Siem Reap as well as being one of the geniuses behind the Giant Puppet Project. Originally from Ireland, Robina came to Cambodia to celebrate her 30th birthday. While traveling around Cambodia for a month she fell in love with the country. Less than a year later, she had chucked everything and moved to Siem Reap. Seven years down the line, she’s still here.

MTC: Robina, what do you know now that you wish you had known before you moved to Cambodia?

RH: “I wish I had known that working alongside Khmer people does not mean they will have time to teach you their language.  Take lessons, you absolutely need them for correct pronunciation.  I wish it had not taken me two years to learn that.  Yes I got by on basic numbers and ‘susaday’ for a while but actually being able to have a real conversation with my gorgeous landlady was impossible and tremendously embarrassing on my part.  Now I adore our regular little chats.

I wish I had known that it was going be almost impossible to convince family and friends to visit me.  No matter how many times I describe how beautiful this country is, and mention the high standards of very affordable accommodation I am still greeted with unconvinced shaking heads.  I am laughed at by these people for things like not owning a washing machine, when in fact it’s wonderful not having one.  I love my laundry lady and I love the fact that by my not owning a washing machine, she has a regular income and I don’t have to deal with washing, hanging out and ironing clothes.  It’s a no brainer, win win.

I wish I had known there would be ‘Cambodia Days‘, the days when everything goes wrong from the moment you leave your house in the morning.  The days that begin with someone blatantly trying rip you off and won’t budge even though you know you are right and they know you are right.  The days when you are constantly told ‘cannot’ when you need something important done urgently.  The days when someone laughs at you and you stare sternly in reply instead of simply accepting this cultural trait for what it is, nothing personal, just a reaction.  These happen about once every two or three months, that’s when you know you need to get away somewhere, anywhere.”

Help! I need a hairdresser to tame my mane

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Marissa Carruthers

Marissa Carruthers is a freelance journalist who, less than a month ago, left behind life in the UK for the sun and smiles of Cambodia. In her weekly column, she will be sharing the ups and downs of settling into life in Phnom Penh as a new expat.

A Cambodian wedding guest gets her hair and makeup done at a Phnom Penh salon.

Katoey or “ladyboy” salons are all the rage in Cambodia, but haven’t taken off with Westerners. Yet.

The one thing that filled me with dread when I left the UK was leaving behind my hairdresser.

My beloved, talented Jo. She knew exactly where to put the highlights and lowlights, how to feather my uncontrollable fringe and she hacked perfectly into my masses upon masses of hair to create those choppy layers that take out all of that excess weight.

It took five years of “my, don’t you have thick hair” (really, I’d never noticed) from various hairdressers, who could never manage to tame the lion’s mane, before I found her, and when I did I vowed never to let her go.

Until now. I did offer to smuggle her over to Cambodia in my suitcase when she squeezed me in for a pre-move session in October but selfishly she laughed off my offer.

So here I am, in desperate need of a haircut and a deep conditioning treatment to put some sort of life back into the bush that has settled on my head; all puffed up by the humidity, and frazzled and fried by the sun and my failed efforts with the straighteners – three minutes after straightening, the frizz and waves return rendering the whole operation utterly pointless.

All hopes that the sun would naturally lighten my roots and hide those pesky grey hairs that are starting to breed on top have also been dashed, meaning I’ll also need to get my hair highlighted pretty soon.

I’ve been frantically trawling the Internet for Western hairdressers in Phnom Penh and have actually been surprised by the number out there. But after the series of hairdressing horrors I’ve experienced back in Blighty, I really want to leave crying in the mirror as soon as I get home a thing of the past.

So I’m on the hunt for advice. In fact, I’ll rephrase that: I’m in desperate need of help and all recommendations will be oh-so-gratefully received.

Cambodia’s fading history of hand-painted signs

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Lina Goldberg

As the country develops more quickly than seems technically possible, Cambodia’s landscape is increasingly filled with glitzy billboards for Korean products and commercial electronics ads. Even so, you’ll still find a dwindling numbers of traditional hand-painted signs all over the country.

A Cambodian hand-painted sign for a hairdresser.

Hand-painted signs still dot the streets of Phnom Penh.

Next month Cambodia Living Arts will open a new gallery and its debut exhibition, Living Cambodia through Signs opens December 4th at 6pm and features photographs by Sam Roberts of hand-painted signs in Kratie as well as some of the original signs. Photographs and original signs will be for sale, with all profits benefiting Cambodia Living Arts’ programs. Roberts has also recently released a book, Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie, which features more than 170 photographs of Cambodia’s hand-painted signs, as well as the stories of some of the men that paint them.

Cambodia Living Arts is a local non-profit organization that seeks to preserve historic Cambodian arts such as traditional performing arts and musical instruments and techniques that have become threatened since the Khmer Rouge era. (Be sure to catch their dance and music performances in front of Phnom Penh’s National Museum at 7pm Monday to Saturday). The hand-painted sign exhibition will run from December 4th through January 5th, 2013.

A hand-painted sign for dentist in Phnom Penh.

In Phnom Penh, a dentist advertises with a hand-painted sign.

Cambodia’s hand-painted signs are part of the country’s fading cultural heritage — many Cambodians seem to think that shiny and generic is preferable to the old-fashioned. In his book, Roberts documents signs replete with flying pigs, retro hairstyles and hand grenades, as well as many other mundanities that offer a window into Khmer life and culture, from ads for skin-whitening cream to intricate paintings of the Khmer language.

Roberts writes, “Cambodia is a country awash with hand-painted signs, but behind their quirky nature is a story entwined with the country’s own troubled history.”

If you’re in Phnom Penh, be sure to check out the show at Cambodia Living Arts, otherwise, have a look at Roberts’ book.

Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie by Sam Roberts is available on Amazon and Amazon UK in both paperback and digital formats for $19.95 and $3.99 respectively.

Expat Q&A: Fall in love with Cambodia

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Lina Goldberg

In this series we talk to Cambodia expats about what they wish they had known before they moved to Cambodia that they know now.

This week we talk to Lauren Crothers, an Irish reporter and photojournalist with the Cambodia Daily. Lauren grew up in Hong Kong and has been happily living in Phnom Penh for a little over two years.

Lauren Crothers at her photograph exhibition

Lauren Crothers with some of her fantastic photographs of Cambodia.

MTC: Lauren, what do you know now that you wish you had known before you moved to Cambodia?

LC: “I wish I had not listened to certain people whose reactions to the news I would be moving to Cambodia looked like this:


…and who relished in telling me that the one day they spent backpacking through Phnom Penh filled them with despair and revulsion. “Ugh, there are rats, and rubbish, and it’s such a shithole,” one said. Dear expat-to-be — ignore these people. They are utterly useless and, in the grand scheme of things, have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

I wish I had known I wasn’t moving to the edge of the world, fun as that may have been. In the lead up to my arrival more than two years ago, most of the information I found online gave me the impression that Phnom Penh was populated exclusively by a jaded older set who didn’t want to share their patch with newcomers and as a result, were unwilling to be helpful. I was wrong.

Cambodia is home to some fascinating characters, many of whom have some incredible stories to tell over a (very cheap) drink. Come here with an open mind and try not to let the little things get to you. You will soon realise that Cambodia will slap you around the face with an important sense of perspective. Hang on to it, even if you get sucked in to a bubble of lazy days by the pool and sunset cocktails. There is so much more to this country than that.

Once I got beyond the initial wide-eyed assimilation period, I could not wipe the smile from my face. I don’t have a false sense of security at all, but I’ve managed to avoid getting malaria, dengue and having a bag snatched. I did once mysteriously get an epic staph infection in my face, which was efficiently treated and now makes for a good story. My tummy had an adjustment period. Yours probably will too. Just accept it.

In many ways, though, it was the not knowing that has made my life here so enriching. Not knowing how hard I’d fall in love with Cambodia, with the work I do, the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met only served to heighten my experiences. I’ve gone from feeling like Cambodia would be the final frontier to realising that for me, at least, it’s the centre of the universe.”

You can view Lauren Crothers’ amazing photos of Cambodia here, or follow her on Twitter at @laurencro. Lauren also has an exhibition of her photographs from her time in Cambodia running through December 31st at the Flicks in Phnom Penh.

Escaping the city

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Marissa Carruthers

Marissa Carruthers is a freelance journalist who, less than three weeks ago, left behind life in the UK for the sun and smiles of Cambodia. In her weekly column, she will be sharing the ups and downs of settling into life in Phnom Penh as a new expat.

Sunset at the more relaxed Otres Beach

Sat on stretching white sands that overlook gently rippling, crystal clear waters, with a beer in one hand and a book in the other, I discovered another one of the many reasons Cambodia is great this weekend.

Phnom Penh’s city smog and at times oppressive heat was closing in fast and with my husband heading back to the UK on Sunday, we decided to escape the city and hit the coast for a couple of relaxing days.

Just five hours away – and a meagre $6 – by bus sits Sihanoukville, a seedy town that has sold its soul to tourism and is somewhat lacklustre in personality, as we very quickly discovered. However, just a few days there and a stint in a sea kayak gave us the perfect chance to discover some of the more isolated beaches away from the hedonistic Serendipity strip we were staying at.

As the gateway to Cambodia’s idyllic islands, a few more days would have given us the chance to explore the cluster of islands that litter the southern coast. Said to rival neighbouring Thailand’s tourist-trampled shores, the allure of these tropical paradises is too much and I will be returning to Sihanoukville, but only in passing.

With Cambodia being a fairly small country with easy access to Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, weekends away are something I’ve vowed to do more of and my list of places to visit is growing by the day.

I want to discover lazy life in Kampot and Kep, rural Battambang, the rich history of Angkor Wat and surrounding Siem Reap, the supposedly even busier streets of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. The list goes on.

And with travel and accommodation being so cheap, turning my dreams into reality really shouldn’t be too hard.