Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Hello Cambodia!
Facts:
Population: 18.05 million people
95% of the people are Khmer
Median age is 26.9
Gender ratio is almost 50/50, male/female
95% the country are Theravada Buddhists
Total area: 181,040 sq km
Emergency numbers: Police-117, Fire-118, Ambulance-119
Language:Khmer (ខ្មែរ), an Austroasiatic, analytic language written using an abugida script. It has no verb tenses, plurals, or spaces between words (rather spaces between clauses and sentences). Arabic numerals are commonly used and understood along with Khmer numbers. It's not a tonal language, but it's different enough from English that we don't expect to learn much of it, but here are some useful phrases:
- hello (informal) = "Sousdey" (សួស្ដី)
- thank you = "Arkoun" (អរគុណ)
Currency: USD (only crisp/unblemished) + Cambodian Riel (~4000:1 USD)
Health risks: travelers’ diarrhea/gastroenteritis, typhoid, and hepatitis A from contaminated food & water (use bottles, only swim in pools or the ocean), mosquito-borne illnesses (dengue, malaria, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, and zika), rabies (mammal bites & scratches), hantavirus (rodents), the Thai border...
Traffic/vehicles: more cars & trucks here but still majority motorbike (about 60/40) - and what looks like a lot of tuk-tuks on the road - but apparently they are concentrated in the big cities/tourist areas.
Weather: average temperature 23-35 degrees - cooler & dry Nov-Feb, hot & dry Mar-April, rainy May-Oct
Visa: US citizens get 30 days single entry (either VOA or eVisa), and can extend once for another 30 days
Itinerary:
- Phnom Penh (history/museums x 4 days)
- Siem Reap (Angkor Wat & floating villages x 1 week)
- Kampot (pepper farm x 2 weeks)
- Koh Rong (islands x 2 days)
- Kratie (Mekong River Dophins x 2 days)
Things we want to taste here:
- Amok trey, steamed fish curry
- Lok lak, beef stir fry with Kampot pepper
- Kampot pepper, the champagne of peppercorns
- Num banh chok, lightly fermented noodles in fish broth
- Borbor, Khmer congee
- Sankhya lapov, coconut egg custard steamed inside a kabocha squash
- Kralan, coconut sticky rice cooked in bamboo
- Pleah Sach Ko, lime cured beef salad
- Samlar kari, Cambodian chicken curry
- Chruok svay, green mango salad
- Ngam ngov, pickled lime soup
- Ansom chek, sticky rice banana cake
- Chien chuon, crispy fried fish with ginger-garlic sauce
- Nom lote, pandan rice pudding
Labels: Cambodia, Status Update
