The Cambodia travel notes below are tips, recommendations, suggestions, or logistical information regarding specific hotels, restaurants, tours, etc. They certainly aren’t all-inclusive, but maybe they’ll help out potential travelers who are in the planning stage of an upcoming trip.
Cambodian Visa Tips
To visit Cambodia for a stay of less than 30 days, one must have a “single–entry tourist visa.” It turns out that there’s a host of websites and “entrepreneurs” ready and willing to help you get that visa for a price. — And sometimes, a pretty steep price. The thing to do, at least in the United States, is to go directly to the Cambodian Embassy, here.
When we got our visas, the price wasn’t mentioned on the site, so I sent an e-mail to the embassy. I promptly received a reply with the information I sought, and then some. You have to send them your passport, which we weren’t too keen on, but that seems to be the way the visa process works. (It was the same for getting a Vietnam Visa).
Our cost per visa was $30 US. I see that as of this writing, that’s still the cost, and now, it’s shown on the embassy’s website. Easy-to-follow instructions are also provided. We were told that it would take 2-3 weeks, but we got our passports with visas back in about a week.
The Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf & Spa Resort
While in Siem Reap we stayed at the Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf & Spa Resort. Did I feel guilty, staying at such a posh address in an otherwise impoverished country? I did. For a while, at least. If you go to the hotel’s website, scroll down to see the photos, but they don’t do the place justice. It’s really special.
Our Angkor Temple Tour
There are lots of tours to choose from, but the one we opted for was a one-day tour provided by Asia Vipa. For us, it was perfect. Ok — we were pretty hot and tired at the end of the day, but hey, it’s Cambodia. It gets hot there!
If we ever do it again, we’d do the same thing again. And if I was smart enough to write down our intrepid tour guide’s name, I’d ask specifically for him. Here’s the specific tour we signed up for: Angkor Wat Day Tour 1 Day, Tour Code: AD-A1D.
By the way, we really liked the place we had lunch that day, too. It’s called the Khmer Angkor Kitchen. Wonderful.
River Cruise on the Mekong
We’re on a river cruise on the Mekong river. It’s a cruise provided by a company called AmaWaterways. (More on AmaWaterways below). Our boat is named the AmaDara. The specific cruise we were on is “Riches of the Mekong.” We started in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and ended in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We loved it.
Because of the low water level at the time of our cruise, we had to take an hours-long bus ride through Cambodia. That might not sound like fun, but thanks to the Cambodian guide who was on the bus with us, it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. At every stop on the cruise, we were provided with local guides who were excellent.
The staff on board the boat who took such good care of us were also special. Most were either Cambodian or Vietnamese. They work for months at a time without seeing their families, but you’d never know it, because their attention always seems to be focused on you. We had so much fun with them, yet at the same time, they were so professional. I have not forgotten them, and there are a few who I may never forget.
AmaWaterways
We’ve traveled with AmaWaterways before. They do an outstanding job. We were particularly impressed at the excursions on the their Mekong cruise. We went to out-of-the-ordinary places. Take , for example, the school we visited — a thoughtful and meaningful destination we wouldn’t have stumbled on if we were on our own. The guides were locals and were excellent. Here’s their website.
Other Sources for Travel in Cambodia
I’ve ran across quite a few travel blogs containing material relating to Cambodia. Here are two of my favorites:
Adventures in Wonderland — A Pilgrimage of the Heart. This is an amazing blog. Check out the link, if only for the great photos of a floating village near Phnom Penh. (But once you start reading, you’ll want to read more).
Camboticket Blog. Camboticket is website promoting tours, excursions, and a provider of tickets for all manner of travel in Cambodia and vicinity, but it’s more than that. Their write-up on the floating village, here, is really nice. The photography is excellent! If you want to get a better feel for what life is like in and around a floating village on the Mekong, check it out.
Further Reading about the Khmer Rouges in Cambodia
I’ve ran across In preparation for our trip, I read a number of books about the Khmer Rouges in Cambodia. (I read more after returning home). My favorite is a book by someone who went through the misery first-hand as a child, and lived to tell about it. The book is titled, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.” The author is Loung Ung. This is just an awesome read. It will set you back, even now, decades later.
My least favorite, which I won’t name, is also by someone who lived and suffered terribly through those years, even through they believed in the Khmer Rouges cause. At the end of the book, the author concludes that Pol Pot and his cadre were really onto something. They just made some mistakes implementing their vision. I’m holding my fingers back from typing anything further. That’s all I’ll say about that.
To better understand the history of the time, the facts, the how’s and why’s behind the evolution of events, my favorite read was “Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land,” by Henry Kamm.
I also read a book about Pol Pot. I didn’t plan on reading it, but once I got a few pages in, I had to keep reading. If one is trying to understand how the nightmare in Cambodia could happen, this book adds a lot: “Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,” by Philip Short.
