Posts Tagged → Cambodia

Five links on ummm…Sunday

Sorry…I made a quick trip to Sydney and forgot that I was meant to be posting this on Friday. Enjoy your long weekend, Australians.

The found pepper of Cambodia

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What does the visit of Chinese emissary Zhou Daguan to Angkor Wat in 1297, Khmer Rouge kidnappings and the recent landgrabbing of Okhna Ly Yong Phat in rural Sre Ambel, Cambodia have in common?

Cambodian pepper: which is how I tenuously link them all together in this month’s Chile Pepper magazine (US). With photos from Austin Bush it promises the best collaboration since Snoop Dogg recorded “Ain’t Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang” with Dr Dre.

Choul Chnam Thmei: Cambodian is the New Thai

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While I’ve been saying for what seems like years that Sihanoukville is the new Luanda, in one of its final posts of the year, Epicurious has announced that for 2008, Cambodian food will supplant Thai food.

A triangulation between Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai cooking, Cambodian’s emphasis on noodle dishes, curries, stir fries and prahok, the strong-flavored fish paste, will grow in popularity. Cambodian food has stronger flavors than Vietnamese, slightly more subtle that Thai and is not as heavy as Chinese.

Also, cheers to everyone who donated to Menu For Hope. Over US$90,000 was raised. Prize draw to come.

Seasons Greetings from Cambodia

This morning, a group of approximately 40-50 Kampuchea Krom (KK) monks gathered peacefully in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh to appeal for the release of Kampuchea Krom monks who are detained and convicted in Vietnam.

Intervention and local police immediately set up road blocks to prevent people from entering the area and shortly after talking to the group of KK monks, intervention police proceeded to disperse the group of KK monks by kicking some of the KK monks and using electrical and wooden batons on others. Police were heard shouting that these were “fake monks”. So far, we have treated 2 KK monks with serious injuries and 4 other KK monks with lesser injuries.

From Licadho. DAS and Erik from buddh•ism ad•junkt provide coverage. From a marginally food-related perspective (and possibly, as a way of gauging the explosiveness of even mentioning the words “Kampuchea Krom” on the web in any context), I’ve got a bit of coverage of Kampuchea Krom recipes back at Phnomenon.

Menu For Hope 2007

What is Menu for Hope?

It’s when food bloggers from all over the world join together, and take leave from our usual obsession with our own stomachs. Throughout the year, we tend to wank on about food, beer, wine and other such visceral pleasures, but for two weeks every December, we pull together a bunch of excellent prizes and ask you, our readers, to help us support those who are not so lucky, to whom food is not a mere indulgence but a matter of survival. This Menu for Hope is our small way to help. Proceeds go to the World Food Program

Group food blog Gut Feelings and all of our excellent and gracious friends have managed to add to the global prize pool. Prizes as follows:

BANGKOK PRIZES

Bed Supper Club

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Dinner for two at Bangkok’s premier destination restaurant Bed Supperclub Bangkok (value 3500 baht)
Code: AP28


18 year old Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky Gold Signature

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(valued at USD$95) also from the good folks at Bed Supperclub
Code: AP23

A dozen bottles of 42 Below vodka

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12 bottles of 42 Below Vodkas to see you through 2008 courtesy of the kind New Zealanders at 42 Below. I strongly recommend their feijoa flavor. (value 12,000 baht)
Code: AP24

Half a dozen bottles of 42 Below Seven Tiki Rum

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6 bottles of 42 Below Seven Tiki Rum. Also from the Kiwi crew. Makes the ideal New Zealander/Cuban mojito (value 6,000 baht)
Code: AP25

One night at Dream Hotel, Bangkok

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One night accommodation at luxury small hotel Dream Hotel, Bangkok (value $280++ USD). Donate and sleep in peace in their sumptuous DREAM beds.
Code: AP29

A day with LP writer and food photographer, Austin Bush + free Lonely Planet Bangkok

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Free copy of latest edition of the Lonely Planet’s Bangkok Guide + Eating Tour of Bangkok with LP writer and Thai food expert Austin Bush. He really knows Thai food (value $200 USD)
Code: AP30

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA PRIZES

One night at Hotel De La Paix, Siem Reap, Cambodia

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One night’s accommodation at uber hip hotel Hotel De La Paix, Siem Reap (value $235 USD)
Code: AP31

One night at Be Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

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One night’s accommodation at boutique hotel in the heart of Siem Reap’s charming laneways Be Hotel Angkor subject to availability (value $150 USD)
Code:AP32

Siem Reap Market Tour and Cooking Class with Joannes Riviere

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Market Tour and Cooking Class with Joannes Riviere, Khmer food expert and author of La Cuisine du Cambodge avec les apprentis de Sala Bai. He knows all the women at the market, speaks fluent Khmer and can teach you how to make a mean samlor machu
Code: AP33

Wild Jungle Honey Collecting Tour with Angkor Conservation Centre for Biodiversity Sustainable Bee Program, Siem Reap

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A once in a lifetime experience. Trek into the jungle with experienced guides, collect wild honey and taste the magic that is freshly harvested bee juice (value 200 USD)
Code: AP34

GLOBAL PRIZE

All the advertisements on Lastappetite.com for February 2008

One 336 x 280 pixel advertisement on the footer of my site for the entire month of February, displayed on every page of the site – image, flash or text link – the choice is yours. My site averages 1900 unique visitors per day, who visit 1.7 pages (98,000 monthly page views). The audience is overwhelmingly American (79% of readers), half of which reside in California. Valued at USD$350
Code: AP22

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our choices above or at the global prize list site

2. Go to the donation site at First Giving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 – 2xEU01, 3xEU02.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Regional Prizes

Check back here on Wednesday, January 9 for the results of the raffle.

How to get from Kep to Phu Quoc in a day

After doing the most scant research on the Internet, it seems that although many people mention that the new border crossing between Prek Chak in Cambodia and Xa Xia/Ha Tien in Vietnam is open to foreigners, nobody tells you how to get from Kep to Phu Quoc in a day or that two of the world’s best seaside destinations are now less than 12 hours apart. Here’s how:

From Kep/Kampot, catch a tuk tuk, taxi or moto to the border, departing no later than 8:00am (if you were keen on an early start, you might attempt a taxi at dawn from Phnom Penh). The price seems to be set at $15 for tuk tuks but this should drop. The last section of the dirt road to the border post has turned from OK to horrific over the wet season and is unapproachable by tuk tuk. We swapped onto some motorbikes for the last two kilometres and negotiated with them to take us all the way over the border to the Ha Tien bus station, a few kilometres into Vietnam and just over the bridge from Ha Tien town for $3. The border post is unassuming, being a few sheds on the Cambodian side and a huge edifice on the Vietnam side. Getting through the post is fast and neither side asked for a bribe. Visas for either country are not available at the border.

The journey from Kep to Ha Tien bus station took roughly two and a half hours. Although we’d heard that there is a ferry from Ha Tien to Phu Quoc, we couldn’t confirm this with anyone in Ha Tien and so headed onward to the speedboat at Rach Gia, about 100km away. At the bus station, there are two buses that you can catch to Rach Gia: a green express bus or a purplish slow bus. We only discovered that the express buses existed after a few passed our local bus. Local buses to Rach Gia cost about 35,000 VND which take about 3 hours depending on how often they stop to pick up passengers/crates of fish along the way.

From the Rach Gia bus station, grab a motorbike to the speedboat to Phu Quoc, which leaves at 1:30pm and arrives in Phu Quoc at 4:00pm. The speedboat is 180,000VND for foreigners, air-conditioned, and the plushest boat that I’ve been on in two years.

Total travel time from Kep to Phu Quoc: 8 hours.

As a smal addendum: I discovered the ferry from Ha Tien to Phu Quoc once we’d arrived in Phu Quoc. According to a sign painted on it, they left Ha Tien at 10:30am and weren’t at all keen on selling me a ticket.

Addendum (13 March 2009): Paul (commenter below) says the ferry from Ha Tien to Phu Quoc is now running. Can be organised through Sok Lim Tours and is even cheaper than the way that I did it.