I told you about our delightful month in Vietnam in the last article. Even if we could have stayed longer (the food! the food, my friends!), we eventually have to get going, as our end goal in South-East Asia is to reach by land Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by end of August.

Direction Cambodia, then! 🇰🇭

Given Dimitri’s “limited” time, we first thought that we would only cross through Cambodia, just stopping at Siem Reap to visit the world-famous Angkor site. We have changed our minds and have extended our stay to almost two weeks, to cover 3 main spots:

• Phnom Penh, between sky and hell
• M-Pai Bay and the south islands, off from the world
• Angkor, the lost civilization

Before we start with this great plan, one has to enter the country though…

Crossing the border between Vietnam and Thailand

If you recall the last time we crossed a border by land, between India and Nepal, you understand why I am a tad anxious about it. The process seems quite simple, nonetheless: as French citizens, we can obtain a visa at the border, for $40 per person. On our friend Alexandre’s advice, we buy our dollars in Ho Chi Minh City, from a jewelry that is making its whole business about buying and selling foreign currencies. Many stacks of notes are exchanged over a busy street counter, a situation whose legality does not seem to bother the nearby city guard. Eh, if it works!… 🤷🏻‍♀️

Still guided by Alex and Tran, we settle for a 6-hour bus ride with Danh Danh Express bus, from Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) to Phnom Penh (Cambodia). Shortly before the border crossing, last stop in Vietnam: time to spend our last dongs on Vietnamese delicacies! After intense calculation, we leave with cashew nuts (so much more tastier than the ones I’ve had in Europe) and puffed rice.

Now that we are sure that we will not die of hunger (after a month when eating was our main activity), let’s get down to business. Luckily, this time around, Dimitri and I are not the only foreigners. The border crossing is in the end very simple: all foreigners are gathered together, given their passports with the registration papers filled by the travel company and told what to do, helped by sympathetic custom guards. In 30min, the border is crossed and we are into Cambodian territory. Pfiuuu!…

I got shown a picture of a white girl by a bus driver, without any further explanation but an urge in his gesture – he must have assumed that all white people looked alike or must knew each other, somehow? It actually made me laugh, because the girl did NOT look like me at all – but, eh, same same!

At first glance, Cambodia looks like a highly traditional country… hence our surprise when we reach Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh, between sky and hell

Coming from the crowded countries we have been in, Cambodia looks surprisingly unpopulated. We check the figures: Cambodia hosts circa 17 million people as of 2021, compared to bordering Vietnam and its 99 million inhabitants. A population 5.8x less important than Vietnam, when Cambodia’s size is only half of its neighbor. Both countries are not at the same development stage as well, Cambodia’s development still recovering from the years of regional conflicts and from its own bloody regimes. Our first impression of Phnom Penh: an oddly modern capital. Skyscrapers share the space with mama and papa restaurants, temples and lively and messy markets like we could find in India. And empty wastelands before that.

Money seems to be flowing here: cars are massive, big corporations look thriving. Let’s talk more about money, as Cambodia uses a special system, with two currencies: dollars and the local riels. Simply put, dollars are used as the reference, and riels are used for small amounts of money. As somebody coming from a zone reknown for its monetary stability (yay Eurozone!), undermining of the local currency in favor of the dollar sounds quite unsettling. Dollar notes are asked to be crispy, absolutely clean (to an obsession) whereas riel notes have seen it all. One hotel we have stayed at even asks customers for a fee, if they want to pay in riels – supposedly the official country currency. The Cambodian play on that with tourists – pricing food and accommodation in dollars ends up in prices higher than what we enjoyed in Vietnam. To our great dispair.

Despite the symbolism of the dollar as the main currency, the main foreign investor in Cambodia is China, accounting for 66% of the total investment in 2023 (according to Khmer Times). Most of the new highways connecting the country tourist destinations have been financed by the superpower, and many of these regions are been reshaped to suit their Chinese customers. This is supposedly quite visible in the Southern coastal areas – what we are to witness later on.

Phnom Penh is not reknown for its beauty. Still, strolling at night on the river banks is pleasant, especially when your home stay is located in front of the Royal Palace. Buddhist temples are found there and there and the bright orange figures of the monks are splashes of colors on the grey of the alleys.

Phnom Penh’s main places to see hold a way heavier past, in spite of this peaceful introduction. Before travelling to Cambodia, the only context when I had heard the word “Khmer” was referring to the Khmer Rouge. This bloody regime terrorized Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 (and more), conducting a genocide that killed 25% of the country population. When distributed by gender, roughly 33% of men were killed, and 15% of women. As the criteria to be an enemy of the nation were very wide, a majority of victims ultimately belonged to the Khmer ethny, the very same ethnic group that the Khmer Rouge intended to “save guard”. Given the tough topic, I won’t enter into too much details in this article. If you want to have a rough understanding of the matters at stake, I recommend you the following two great Wikipedia articles: the History of Cambodia and the Cambodian Genocide.

Having read many articles, Dimitri and I visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, for the duty of remembrance. After visiting the first part of the first floor only, I have to stop and sit outside: I feel like puking and crying at the same time. The memorabilia are unfiltered, showing what the human can do at their worst. Dimitri continues the journey alone, alongside a class of middle schoolers. Both of us leave the place traumatized – a good reminder about how far humans can go, when they are unsupervised. It was only two freaking generations ago. Not to mention populations suffering the same faith as we speak…

Still shaken, we are desesperate for beauty, love and harmony. Let’s head towards the South islands, to find back some peace of mind.

M-Pai Bay and the south islands, off from the world

The trip from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, the coastal city serving as harbor to the Southern islands, is super smooth: we make it in 3 hours, in a cosy minibus, on a brand-new highway that opened in 2017 (courtesy of the Chinese investors). We have been warned about Sihanoukville: the coast, magical in the past, has now been overrun by mass tourism resorts and most of the picturesque natural beaches have disappeared. The Ultimate guide to Cambodian beaches and islands, from Can Travel Will Travel, says it all: most of beaches considered jewels 10 years ago are now trashed. We are in the low season, and Sihanoukville is mostly empty, its wide, unused resorts giving off a ghostly vibe.

We carefully choose the island where we are to stay four days, avoiding the major island Koh Rong (known as the Party Island – yucks). Our pick will be M-Pai Bay, a remote bay at the northern tip of a smaller island, Koh Rong Sanloem. The bay can only be reached by speed boats, which connect it with the world for an hefty price of 25$ way-and-back (a fortune for the locals). One of the crew members put a birthday cake in front of us, to be brought from the land to one of the islands. Dimitri took it as a personal mission to bring it safe to shore. It is one of the many random things that have happened to us for the past 4 months…

The raining season has started in Cambodia, with pouring rain in the mornings, forcing us to stay in bed – what a shame. 🙂 Dimitri improves his hunting game, knocking off mosquitos, armed with the electrical racket lent by our landlord. We could have gone exploring the island, but our main activities revolve around the sea: watching the waves, fascinated; marveling at the sunsets; paddling in the blue, translucent water. After splurging the last three months, we are now sure that we won’t meet our planned budget, so exit the diving lessons or other pricey activities. That’s alright – we are happy just admiring Nature’s unmatched color harmony.

Four days felt too short.

I know, I might repeat myself when I say that we could have stayed at some place a few weeks more. It does not mean that it is not true: even if we have significantly more time than the average traveller, we solely can see a glimpse of the countries we are visiting. Living in an island was something that I wanted to experience absolutely in my world tour, too. Nevermind, we will do it again in the Thai islands!

After this parenthesis off the world, we are on the road again, back to Phnom Penn, aiming for Siem Reap and Angkor, the world-famous city.

Angkor, the lost civilization

Even if you are not familiar with Cambodia, chances are that you have heard about Angkor. Its most famous building, Angkor Wat (Temple), is even featured on the Cambodian flag. Angkor is to Cambodia what the Taj Mahal is to India: one is expected to visit it when touring the country.

And it is entirely worth its fame.

Visiting Angkor requires you to buy tickets ranging from $37 (one-day pass) to $72 (seven-day pass). Little be said that it is a profitable business: Angkor website proudly states that the passes bring $2.3million per month. Siem Reap, the neighboring town where all tourists stay, has well understood the money potential of the incoming flows and is a real tourist land. Everybody speaks English, the staff is smiling and jokes with customers, one can find supermarkets offering all the main foreign goods, an entire street is dedicated to bars (properly called “Pub Street”) and there are beauty parlors specialized in massages everywhere. You can sense that the city is flushed. Even our hostel has a private swimming pool.

Althought, you can easily avoid the tourist traps and that is what makes Siem Reap fit for its purpose: hosting you while you discover Angkor. While our hostel offers everything for twice its actual price, we only have to walk 10min maximum to find a laundry shop, a scooter rental and all the amenities. Renting our own motorbike is by far the best decision that we have had: coupled with our 3-day pass ($62 per head), we are the kings of the world. Let’s move to Angkor, shall we?

The ancient city was the biggest pre-industrialized city in Asia of its era, heading the Khmer Empire that ruled from the IXth to the XVth century. The Khmer Empire covered a significant part of South-East Asia, with a territory from East Thailand to Laos and parts of South China and Vietnam, until it was beaten by the Chams (one of nowadays Vietnamese ethnies). The circumstances of the fall of the Khmer have intrigued many writers, and rumor had it that building Angkor might have led the empire to its doom. It was since debunked, but it gives you an idea about how lavish this capital was.

Angkor was built mostly around the XIIth century, by the Khmer King Suryavarman II. As mentioned above, Angkor Wat synthetizes most of the city essence. It is considered as the “largest religious structure in the world”, thanks to its site covering 163 hectares (Wikipedia).

For once, we hire a guide in front of the building, to get an understanding of patterns that are recurring on the whole Angkor site. The building, which is one of the most well-maintained monuments in Angkor, still suffered from the many wars and from the rough climate. This state, paired with the fact that one can wander freely on the gigantic temple ground, gives off the thrilling feeling on walking on the steps of a lost civilization.

Angkor is basically an open air playground for architecture lovers, Sunday adventurers and temple hoppers. We short-list two-three temples per day, and go on exploring with our faithful motorbike. Side note: after our last crazy ride in the forest, which ended up in the mud (the full adventure here), I was so stressed to drive again – Angkor has made me go over it, given how easy these avenues are. Exit with the rushed touristic tours, this is our favorite way to travel: slowly, bags packed with snacks, fully autonomous with our bike.

(I am quite aware that this is one of the priviledges of travelling as a duo: being self-sufficient. Let’s see how I adapt during the second stage of my trip!...)

When we are done with our sight-seeing days, we are back at the hostel, enjoying the refreshing pool after sweating for hours. Too bad that Dimitri had to slip on his butt, on the scarcely lit stairs. A fellow Indian tourist came to the rescue, feeling Dimitri’s pain, as he too knew the same issue three days ago. Nothing serious but an annoying back pain for our Dimi.

This incident does not darken our spirits for long. As we come back to the hostel at the end of our last visit day, we hear a joyful kiddo shouting to him “Hello, Black man!”. He looks at us with the biggest smile on his face – the only rational reaction is bursting into laughter. It is true that we have witnessed, for four months now, how talking about race is far from being a taboo in Asia and South-East Asia. We were told in Nepal that it was nice that we were a mixed-race couple, our Vietnamese friend was completely fine with calling herself “yellow” and we have heard stories about foreigners being referred to as “Strangers” in school, as it was their names. It sure brings a different take on the overall matter. Different cultures and different contexts, though. This remark is just to be remembered as a sign of Cambodian friendliness… 😉

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We just stayed a little less than two week in Cambodia, and I believe it was enough to do a first dip into the Khmer territory. Angkor was a wonder, the Cambodian islands were peaceful retreats and Phnom Penh was a useful reminder of what the humans are capable of. I have to admit that we were a bit taken aback by the price increase and the limited food variety, compared with Vietnam. The Cambodian are cheerful fellows, and we are happy nonetheless that we got to meet some of them.

We have crossed the border to Thailand since, for which we had huge hopes. After one week so far, I can say that Thailand does not disappoint. See you next article, so that I tell you more about it!