Cambodia is becoming a popular destination with Western travellers because it has a stunning and diverse natural landscape, it has friendly people, it has enjoyed a rich and varied history and offers up a whole host of exciting and fantastic experiences to enjoy.
Many of those who visit Cambodia for an extended period of time fall in love with the country and its people and are determined to work to help the nation and either settle down or later return to work in Cambodia.
Foreigners crowding into I.C. Chaney's Beautiful Shoes shop on Street 143 revel in the prices of his handmade shoes - who could believe a custom-made leather sandal could cost just $15?
But Chaney's story of survival since he took over the family business in 1981 is even more remarkable
"My family has had a shoe business here for many years - through the Lon Nol period, and Sangkum Reastre Niyum. We had many famous customers like Kong Sam Oeun," Chaney says, referring to the great Khmer actor and male heart throb of the 1960's and 70's.
Phnom Penh: When the hot season arrives, Phnom Penh and Takhmao [Kandal] are facing a lack of electricity, which is a heavy burden that has not yet been solved. It causes some areas in these two cities to have frequent power cut-offs, especially during the day, affecting the daily lives of the citizens.
Friends-International has just been presented with the prestigious Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship at a ceremony in Oxford. The award comes with a three-year, $1,015,000 funding grant which will allow Friends- International to strengthen and extend its services to provide direct quality services to at least 500,000 more street children by reinforcing and expanding its projects in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Honduras, as well as developing new projects in Vietnam, Yunnan (China), Malaysia, Mexico and countries in the Caribbean and Africa.
This new work, by a Khmer American woman born in April 1975, just as her country was plunged into the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, is not another first person narrative of the events of that time. Rather, it is a narrative of a personal journey exploring the legacy of being ethnic Cambodian in the aftermath of Pol Pot, of living with the stories of war that live as a "disorderly chaos churning in my head." Ms. Phim is not the daughter of urban elites banished to the countryside as "new" people, as all of those to publish first person accounts have been to date.
As the afternoon draws on, just before the traffic on the Japanese Bridge reaches its crazy peak, the sun starts to throw long shadows from a grove of sugar palms and boys begin to bring their cattle back from an afternoon grazing to wash and drink at the edge of the wetlands.