What is your trip going to cost? By international standards, Southeast Asia offers amazing value--that $200 cubby hole in Kyoto, Japan will get you a private pool villa in Bali--but you need not be spending the earth to be comfortable. That said, it is just as easy to spend $10 a night as $1,000 a night, and while you can burn through money in beautiful bars and world-class restaurants, the region is famous for its affordable street food and drink. The choice is really yours. While it's obvious that you need to budget for your accommodation and food, don't forget to factor in sights and activities, some of which can be on the pricier side. Things like learning to dive on Ko Tao, `spending a week kiteboarding at Mui Ne , three nights at the Gibbon Experience in Laos, a volcano climb on Lomb

Why you need travel insurance While it's true that basic healthcare can be cheap, the emphasis should be on the word basic--not cheap. Thailand, Singapore and to a lesser extent Malaysia have a higher standard of care, than say Cambodia or Burma, but this is often in private hospitals, not public. Anything more than a night or two in hospital gets expensive, fast, and the medical bills associated with longer stays can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars--and higher. Picking the right insurance was complicated enough, and then Covid-19 came along to well and truly mix things up. After an initial period where insurers stop offering policies altogether, most have returned, albeit with more varied offerings. Restrictions and new rules remain commonplace and more than ever reading

Cambodia is becoming a fascinating destination for tourists. It is a beautiful country with many unique cultural traditions. Knowing the "code of communication" will make your Cambodia tour packages more interesting and avoid culture shock or communication mistakes. This means you respect the local people you meet and show them that you are a great ambassador for your home country. These following tips will help you understand the temple country - Cambodia. Cambodia is a Buddhist country and the local people are very reserved so you must take these Dos and Don'ts in your mind when you have a Cambodia tour. DOS Ask before taking photos: a smile in Cambodia means shyness and discomfort so don't ever presume that the locals feel ok when you capture their images. If they smile and nod with you

Travel planning So you're leaving on a holiday to Southeast Asia for the first time and you're sitting in front of your computer thinking: Now what do I have to get done before I leave? No two trips are exactly the same--after all everyone has different travelling styles, budgets, tastes and interests--but many of the aspects of planning a trip are largely the same, especially the planning required before even leaving. Just as there is no "right" way to travel, there is no "correct" way of travel planning. Some people enjoy planning down to a minute level of detail, while for others anything more than a passport, backpack and plane ticket is over-planning. We're going to cover all the bases here, to create a broad travel checklist for planning a trip to Southeast Asia. You're of course wel

The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than one million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970-1975). The mass killings were part of a broad state-sponsored genocide (the Cambodian genocide). Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicates at least 1,386,734 victims of execution. Estimates of the total deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including death from disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, e

A FASCINATING CAPITAL A heaving crossroads of cultures, times, peoples and worlds, Phnom Penh is a city on the edge of everything. With one foot still rooted in the past, which you can find in the temples, markets and buzzing back streets, and another striding boldly into the future, which is pretty much all around you, this thriving, turbulent city brings together Cambodian, Chinese and French influences in a congested, grimy, shiny, vibrant and thrilling mash that somehow seems to work--except when it rains. Once known as the "Pearl of Asia", Phnom Penh used to be one of the better-preserved French colonial towns in Southeast Asia. However, developers--occasionally driven by a need to clean up someone's cashflow--are working tirelessly to put paid to this sobriquet, and once beautiful pa

Kampong Phluk which is a cluster of three villages of stilted houses built within the floodplain about 16 km southeast of Siem Reap. The villages are primarily Khmer and have about 3000 inhabitants between them. Flooded mangrove forest surrounds the area and is home to a variety of wildlife including crab-eating macaques. During the dry season when the lake is low, the buildings in the villages seem to soar atop their 6-meter stilts exposed by the lack of water. At this time of year many of the villagers move out onto the lake and build temporary houses. In the wet season when water level rises, the villagers move back to their permanent houses on the floodplain, the stilts now hidden under the water. Kampong Phluk's economy is, as one might expect, based in fishing, primary in shrimp harv