One month as nomads in Cambodia
After Vietnam, we left for (You guessed it considering this article) Cambodia. Since we were not sure we would be able to enter the country by land or water with the e-visa (Supposedly, with the e-visa you could in November 2022 just enter by air), we flew from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh.
It is a very short flight, as the two cities are separated by only about 200km. We had a turbo reactor plane for the first time.
One of the interesting facts about Cambodia is that they use both Riel and US dollar indifferent. When we were there in December of 2022, the official change was around 4100 Riel per USD, and in most businesses and restaurants, the change was 4000 Riel per USD. You can pay in USD and they would give you the change in Riel, or you can pay in Riel and they may sometimes give the change in USD. Or, you can mix. It highlights the economic difficulties of a country that suffered a lot since the 1970s.
Cambodia was also the first country we visited that does not use the latin alphabet. The Khmer alphabet has its own secular roots, and… we can not read it at all. Yet, most places have subtitles, and we always managed to communicate with basic English. We needed to learn numbers in order to understand the bills in riel. The fact that the zero is universal since it was created by the Indians helped a lot here! Thus we just needed to learn the 1 and the 5., and that was quick.
How we organized in Phnom Penh
We had rented a place in Phnom Penh close to the Genocide museum, in Ananta Cana, but, we only spent one night there. It was a room with a shared kitchen, very small and not very practical. It was hard to reach, and we wouldn’t have space to work, not even well for one person. It would have been difficult to survive here for 2 weeks. The day after, we asked the host if they had other options, and they had space in another of their venues Ananta Lavender. And here, we had a full studio, with lots of light, and space! So, we stayed there, and we paid about 5 USD extra per night, and it was worth it.
We could again make our own breakfast, and that was good after some time without being able to do it. We found some supermarkets close by, and so we got back to our Mexican routine of eating eggs for breakfast. That was nice. We completed with dragon fruits, and that was great too!
For lunch, we found some pad kra pao close by. And we found a nice vegetarian restaurant when we were having sometimes lunch, sometimes dinner. It was cheap and regular cuisine, Chinese inspired. They used a lot of meat substitutes, with shapes very similar to real meat.
Overall, it was easy to find our routine around, and the area around the museum was nice and tranquil. Phnom Penh is a large city but has vibes of things we don’t see a lot in cities of other countries. You can still see the kids playing in the streets at night, there are several markets in the streets, and you see the monks wandering around and blessing the businesses that stop them. So, I liked the overall ambiance of the city. We stayed for two weeks, and if we took it easy going after our hectic time in Vietnam, we had some incredible experiences that I will tell later. Overall, it was enjoyable.
Looking for river transport
After that, we traveled to Siem Reap. I wanted to make the experience of traveling on the boats along the Tonle Sap river. We looked extensively for options, but it seems two factors have ended the service: the opening of the road from Phom Penh to Siem Reap in recent years, with regular van services between both cities, that are quicker and cheaper than the boat services, and the lack of tourists during the pandemic that took away the last potential customers. So, as of December 2022, no boat services had opened again.
As a result, we took the van service. The vans were all right, full of people, and the space for luggage has been a little bit underestimated. The van driver ended up putting the luggage where he could, which meant… In between the seats, and under the feet of certain passengers. When there was a pause, some luggage needed to be moved.
The road is modern and does look like the only road around during most of the trip. The van made two stops along the way, and you can see why cars can not drive too quickly even on this road. You can find all kinds of things on the road, and not so many cars. You can see some large trailers pulled by improvised motors made out of gardening machinery. So, the van goes between 60 and 80km most of the way and cumulated with the stops, we did about 5–6 hours for the whole trip, which was the announced time.
It was an interesting experience, and it highlights the fact that Cambodia is indeed a country that is late in its development. Phnom Penh does look like a modern city, even if some parts may show it has had a gap in its development. Yet, there, you see skyscrapers being built, and you can feel it is developing. Yet, crossing the country, and on one of the probably most used roads, you can see that a lot remains to do for Cambodia to recover from its economic setback, which was incurred because of the Khmer Rouge era.
Siem Reap, the starting point for Angkor Wat
Siem Reap would reinforce this feeling for me. I liked the vibe of the city that lives mainly from Angkor Wat tourism. Yet, you can see that whenever you are a bit further than the areas intended for tourists, the streets are not well paved and that the city has developed quickly and recently. There is a super nice promenade along the river, and there is an ambiance of a bit of a calm and city far away from everything.
We stayed in Nikka’s House, a homestay south of the tourist center of the city. There, we got a large room, with a balcony. We had a large enough dresser, a coffee table, and a desk for one person to sit and work. Downstairs, there were a few tables with chairs for the breakfasts, and that we used for our working sessions. There was also behind the house a large swimming pool, with a table to sit by too, but without any powered access close enough for my laptop. So, we settled for the street side. We had a nice simple breakfast cooked by nikka or her mum every day.
We found a few good spots to eat for decent prices around, about 3–5usd per meal per person. Just beside was the HeyBong vegan restaurant, held by a germanophone swiss, offering excellent options both Cambodian and international. Then we went to eat most of the time for lunch at Nick Restaurant, mainly Khmer curries, which are excellent and well served. And, we went a few times for dinner at a nearby stall held by a family. Since Khmer live early, the kids were already in pajamas at 7:30 pm. Amongst our other good finds, we can highlight the hand-pulled noodles.
We did try other ones, like the one that was full of tourists and was by far less tasty than Nick and went a few times by the pub street, full of western-style restaurants on prices made for tourists. The funny part there is you can see families in the dancing bars/nightclubs with the kids and the grandma. Overall, our best experiences were a bit out of the most touristic area.
Finally, how was that?
Overall, it was a more positive experience than in Vietnam. Reducing the rhythm was good and we managed to find a form of routine in both cities, that was nice and efficient.
The good surprise, as we didn’t expect anything in particular from Cambodia, was the food. We loved the curry. We had heard it was an expensive country for food, especially considering prices are in dollars, and many ingredients are imported. Yet. it was reasonable, and considering servings and quality, and the fact we were in the most touristic, thus expensive places, very reasonable. We ate usually for less than 4 USD per person, and when eating in stalls, without an official name or business, it was cheaper. Of course, if you stick with western food, you will pay a premium… But we have seen that in every country.
You can feel overall that the country is poorer, even in the cities, where the distance to the global scale is shorter. And, you can see it transferring between cities too. Yet, we never felt in danger or anything, people are overall nice and open to seeing foreigners, and traffic was quite respectful. The fact that their tuk-tuks use scooter engines helps.
I loved the ambiance of Siem Reap and its easygoing vibe, although it is clear the city lives of tourism. The promenade beside the river feels serene.
And for the nomad part, we had a good and efficient internet.
We lived many different experiences in Cambodia, so stick in for the next articles!
