Although I personally sometimes kind of cringe at the idea of going to a place just because everyone else seems to want to go there, Angkor Wat is definitely one of those international travel destinations that I genuinely believe any well-seasoned traveler should visit at least once in their lives. As Lonely Planet described it…
One of the best ways to experience another culture in a colorful and meaningful way is to attend a festival that is important to whichever country you are going to visit. This of course is true pretty much anywhere in the world, and Southeast Asia is no exception. Here are five memorable festivals that will…
As many of you know I’ve been working as the Director of Overseas Projects for a nonprofit organization in Austin, TX called WOWi – the Windows of Wonder Institute. Below is a story about the organization’s current project in Cambodia that I wrote and was published in Wandering Educators recently. We are currently looking for…
Last October while traveling in Cambodia my girlfriend and I met an extraordinary woman named Ponheary Ly. During the 1970’s the Khmer Rouge killed many of the country’s intellectuals and educators, including her father and thirteen other members of her family. Ponheary somehow miraculously survived, and later on she became a teacher herself, knowing that…
Of course no trip to Cambodia would be complete without visiting Siem Reap and the nearby temples of Angkor, but if travelers have the time they really shouldn’t overlook the capital city Phnom Penh, once known as the “Pearl of Asia”. And even though it has risen from the darkened ashes of war that took…
One of the reasons why so many people enjoy traveling to Southeast Asia as much as they do is because it truly is a photographer’s paradise. Even an amateur photographer armed with a decent point and shoot camera can easily get some great shots, because there are so many fascinating people, places and things to…
Cambodia is a captivating country of historical extremes. In the heyday of the Khmer Empire of the 9th to the 13th centuries it ruled over much of modern-day Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. And its seat of power, the ancient city of Angkor, was the largest preindustrial metropolis in the world with a population of about…
As a kid whenever I thumbed through the collection of National Geographic magazines that my family had I was always amazed at how different and exotic so many of the other places in the world were. But the set of pictures that made the biggest, longest lasting impression on me during my childhood were the…