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Entrance fees to the 7 Wonders of the World: how much is too much?
Blog: 501 Places - 30 March 2011
Have you ever stood outside a world famous monument or historic site and questioned whether you can justify spending the money on the entrance ticket? The chances are that you’ve only thought about it briefly before accepting your lot and paying up for the once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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Views from My Tuk Tuk - Angkor Wat Photo Essay
Blog: Living the Dream: RTW - 27 March 2011
The temples of Angkor Wat are one of the most impressive sites in South East Asia and covers more ground than you would anticipate from the photos that are distributed around the internet. The complex is so large that it is almost a necessity to hire a tuk tuk driver to go around and see it all. In ma
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The Anti-Irony of Cambodian Fashion: The English-Language T-Shirt Edition
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 26 March 2011
“I like how cheesy it is, you know?” Mathilde said this morning, ashing her anorexic cigarette and looking across the street, at the teenagers hanging out at the Best Friend Cafe. Fake acid-wash skinny jeans, emo sideswiped hair-dos, bedazzled trucker hats positioned atop boys’ heads in a perch reminiscent of Abe Lincoln—the styles donned so [...]
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How To Cross Land Borders Smoothly
Blog: As We Travel - 22 March 2011
Crossing a border over land can be tricky as hell or really smooth, and sometimes which one it turns out to be is not entirely up to you or even the officials – but the bus drivers. The bus drivers conveniently make you stop for an hour or two in the heat to make you [...]How To Cross Land Borders Smoothly - As We Travel - Around The World Travel Blog
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Update from the Field: Fun Facts, Field Visits + Back to Basics
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 21 March 2011
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa For many Fellows, this week was about getting back to basics: the borrowers. In between fun facts about Kiva Fellowships, doing database detective work, and reflecting on the internal dynamics of Kiva's partner microfinance institutions, Fellows found themselves in the field again and again, much to their delight and often to the delight of borrowers.
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WTF Moment of the Day: Street Monkey
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 16 March 2011
So about once a day here in Phnom Penh I have a massive WTF moment. I’ve been catalouging them: a boy stabbing birds, Western beggars, my guesthouse posting a sign about not offering “the sex services,” and pretty much any occasion I open the Phnom Penh Post. Strange things, bizarre things that my Western brain [...]
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Piece by Piece: The Garment Worker’s Loan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 16 March 2011
By Stephanie Sibal, KF14, Cambodia Gritty streets, massive white buildings, heavily-guarded gates. These are a part the outside view, the experience of someone blindly walking by a garment factory in Cambodia. About 20 kilometers out of Phnom Penh are Ta Khmao and Kandal Sleung, regions well-known for the numerous garment and apparel production factories there. [...]
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Inspirational People: City Banker Turned Philanthropist
Blog: Inside the Travel Lab - 14 March 2011
"Mental salvation," Jean-Marc tells me when I ask why he left his banking job to run a charity full time. He talks about his dismay at the practices in the City in the run up to the crisis. Then he tells me about his son...
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The Wild Guys conquer Cambodia
Blog: Siampedia - the wild years in Southeastasia - 12 March 2011
© Frank P. Schneidewind This trip with my Austrian friends started more like a nightmare. The ordered chauffeur for a planned 6 AM departure at our starting point near Bangkok, did leave us waiting and overslept his alarm clock. So he told us, when he finally showed up two hours late! 6 friends were [...]
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Two Cambodias
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 12 March 2011
“The Cambodian people are just so lovely.” You’re apt to hear this from other Westerners as you travel throughout Southeast Asia; you arrive in Phnom Penh and you’re apt to agree. A friendly, welcoming, almost shy demeanor, so vastly different from the brashness of their Vietnamese neighbors—it’s entracing, in a way, and a part of [...]
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Lost in Navigational Translation: The Tuk-Tuk and Motorbike Drivers of Phnom Penh
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 9 March 2011
“Tuk-tuk la-dee?” “La-dee, moto-bike!” “Where you go?” “La-dee, la-dee—you need moto-bike!” This is the chorus you hear, endlessly, walking through central Phnom Penh. It’s like birds chattering, only more jarring, less song-like. It comes accompanied with a raised arm, two fingers extended—more of a summons than an offering of service.
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Celebrating Women around the World!
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 7 March 2011
Contributions from Kiva Fellows around the globe, compiled by Mei-ing Cheok. The beauty of microfinance is that it gives people at the wrong end of the income spectrum opportunities to step out of the poverty trap. It also provides women the confidence and security that comes from earning their own income, leading to greater gender [...]
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(VIDEO) Tuol Sleng – Phnom Penh, Cambodia Ep.4 (1/2)
Blog: As We Travel - 6 March 2011
After our up and down trip through Laos – we headed down to Cambodia and to the capital of Phnom Penh. Cambodia has had a really dark and painful recent history, so while in Phnom Penh we decided to visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng ...(VIDEO) Tuol Sleng – Phnom Penh, Cambodia Ep.4 (1/2) - As We Travel - Around The World Travel Blog
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Dance, Dance, Evolution: Aerobic Dancing at the Olympic Stadium
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 6 March 2011
It’s dusk at the Olympic Stadium, and it feels like a festival. Vendors have set up stalls selling snack foods, beverages, trinkets. People in sweat clothes swarm. Cliche club dance music beats out of stereosystems and, lined up along the cement ring of the stadium’s top tier, little old ladies dance. It’s called Aerobic Dancing, [...]
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Not Your Normal Expat Scene: Khmer Kids Coming Back to Cambodia
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 4 March 2011
“This not your normal expat scene.” That’s all I kept thinking last night, as I stood sweating and stomach-sore in the crowd. I’d dragged myself out to a show, what was described to me as an all-girl indie rock band that sang in Khmer. Killer. No traveler’s flu would make me miss this. It was [...]
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Holiday in Cambodia: “Ugly Foreigners” At The Tuol Sleng Genoicde Museum
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 3 March 2011
Yeah, yeah, you knew it was coming: A sun-pressed afternoon and I’m walking through the dim cool rooms of the Tuol Slen Genocide Museum. The crumbling cells, the tangled barbed wire, the blood stains on the floor—none of it seems real. A bird flitted through the room of brick cells during our tour; a child [...]
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Phnom Penh: First Impressions, And An Open Letter
Blog: Lonely Girl Travels - 1 March 2011
I want to tell you that there’s life here. There are wide roads filled with motorbikes and tuk-tuks and more cars that I’d expected. There are smaller roads, lined with trees with soft pink flowers; there is laundry on the balconies. There are the umbrellas of the markets, the umbrellas of the monks—yellow above orange [...]
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Update from the Field: Videos, Epic Commutes + Going Beyond Microfinance
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 February 2011
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa Another week, another incredible range of dispatches from around the world.
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Microfinance Marketing 101: The Loan Officer
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 February 2011
By Stephanie Sibal, KF14, Cambodia In the last few weeks, while hopped up on caffeine from too many cups of instant coffee, when I was approached and asked to create a marketing plan for MAXIMA, the microfinance institution (MFI) hosting my Kiva Fellowship in Cambodia, I overeagerly agreed. Prior to my fellowship, I spent some [...]
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Mangoes and Motos: Visits to the field in Cambodia
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 10 February 2011
By Stephanie Sibal, KF14, Cambodia My first couple of weeks serving as a Kiva Fellow in Cambodia were in many ways, a true shock to my system. The country’s capital, Phnom Penh, is a dizzy blur of lights, motorbikes, colonial-inspired architecture, and savory street food aromas that take some getting used to. However, nothing snaps [...]
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Photo Favorite: Ratanakiri Breakdown
Blog: GoBackpacking - 3 February 2011
We were left to swelter for an hour under the mid-day Cambodian sun.---------Join Travel Blog Success today and learn to build a better travel blog.Membership includes 12 lessons, community forum, audio interviews, and a blog.
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Velvet moments: travel photo of the week – jungles of Angkor Wat
Blog: velvet escape's blog - 2 February 2011
Built deep in the jungles of Cambodia, the Angkor temple complex was left untouched for many centuries. Read the accompanying post: “The Wonders of Angkor Wat“. See other Velvet Moments: Tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina Bora Bora, French Polynesia Sacred Water Temple, Bali, Indonesia Masaai Mara, Kenya Positano, Italy The Great Ocean Road, Australia
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Spotting marine mammals: an exercise in pointlessness?
Blog: 501 Places - 19 January 2011
The boat rocks gently, engines off as the ten or so passengers stare intently at the surrounding water. Cameras are poised, ready to snap the moment when the prey emerges. Suddenly there’s a shout: “Eleven o’clock!
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11 months of travel, 4 minutes of video
Blog: Around The World On The Toilet - 16 January 2011
We’ve been back home for a while now, and are back into an everyday routine. Having both found employment, there are no immediate plans for another multi-month trip, but we do find ourselves constantly looking back on the last year with no regrets and memories which will surely last our lifetime. Its been an amazing [...]
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Top 5 South East Asian Budget Airlines
Blog: The Travel Project - 12 January 2011
Here is my list of top 5 budget and no frills airlines in South East Asia that will help you travel to your next destination. Related posts:Flying with Strategic Airlines Etiquette Guide for Visiting Ethnic Villages in South East Asia
