Category ArchiveEverywhere Once |

All’s Well that Ends Well in Battambang

by Shannon on March 23, 2015 in Asia, Cambodia

When we arrive at a new destination, it’s not uncommon for us to quickly, easily step into rhythm with the place. But sometimes, we get off on the wrong foot. Which is exactly what happened in Battambang in western Cambodia.

Battambang was a late addition to the itinerary. We rolled into town tired and sweaty after a seven-hour bus ride from Phnom Penh, only to be given a mosquito-infested room at our not-inexpensive hotel. Dinner at a recommended restaurant was dismally mediocre, while a walk around town showed that the preserved colonial architecture the city is hyped as having really isn’t all that picturesque.

Our less-than-stellar start in Battambang had us wondering why we even bothered to detour there on route from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. If we hadn’t already booked a four-night stay, we might have hastily left town…and that would have been a shame. In Battambang, we ended up having some of our most memorable experiences in Southeast Asia so far.

The Royal Palace, Phnom Penh

by Brian on March 2, 2015 in Asia, Cambodia

We had begun to feel a little underwhelmed by the sightseeing at some of our last few stops in Asia. The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh cured us of that.

Cambodia’s Independence Monument

by Brian on February 27, 2015 in Asia, Cambodia

Erected in Phnom Penh to commemorate Cambodia’s 1953 independence from France.

Things I Miss About the U.S.

by Brian on February 23, 2015 in Asia, Europe, Travel

Like our second-to-none national parks

It’s been nearly a full year since we last set foot inside our home country. And while I can’t remember experiencing a single bout of homesickness during the past 342 days that we’ve been overseas, there are definitely things I miss about traveling in the U.S.

Wrapping My Head Around Cambodia’s Killing Fields

by Brian on February 20, 2015 in Asia, Cambodia

Some things in life are just too awesome to fully comprehend. And at Choeung Ek, an otherwise nondescript orchard a dusty 17 kilometer tuk-tuk drive outside of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, that statement holds true in the worst possible way imaginable.

Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot killed roughly two million people. The truth is, nobody really knows how many men, women, and children fill the roughly 20,000 mass graves that dot Cambodia’s landscape. Estimates range from a low of about 700,000 to over three million.

Words like atrocity and genocide are powerless to adequately describe the madness that is Cambodia’s Killing Fields.

The ground ripples with excavated mass graves

Even touring a place like Choeung Ek, one of Cambodia’s most notorious execution camps, only offers the slightest glimpse of what transpired during those four unimaginable years of Khmer Rouge rule. And yet the magnitude of the horror at that single site is still impossible to behold.