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Funny pictures of Cambodia

A-ruan sua-sdey bong (good morning!)

Here is a quick article that is mostly pictures of funny mishaps in Cambodia. Most of these photos I have gotten (I guess stolen) off of Facebook.  Id like to mention their photographer source, but these were mostly viral pictures that showed up on my “wall”. Enjoy!

 

phnom penh garbage dumpIt says guesthouse 5 dollars for 3 hours or 12 us dollars for all night lol.

 

Phnom Penh style moto snorkelCreative use of pipe so water doesnt get in exhaust 🙂

 

cambodia roll cageCambodian style roll cage lol!

 

moto rides through cambodian monsoonKhmer guy peeing by his tuk tuk in daylight!!!!! oh no 🙂

 

khmer guy walking through floodIt can really flood in Phnom Penh sometimes.

wifi error cambodian signguess they didnt proof read. Free fiwi, I like the ring of it :).

cambodian schoolSend your kids for singi…errrr English lessons at American Idol International School. Im not sure if im confidant in that school.

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Important Cambodian Dates & Holidays

cambodia dates with album cover of dead kennedys

Here are some important Cambodian dates and Holidays for 2014. Some are already past, but ill list them as they’ll be pretty close for next year.

cambodia dates with album cover of dead kennedys

January 1 – New years (international)

January 7 – victory over genocide day

February 14 – Meak Bochea day

March 8 – Women’s day 🙂

April 14-16 – Khmer new year (some places are closed for the whole week)

May 1st – Labor day

May 13 – Visak Bochea day

May 13-15 – King Norodom Sihamoni’s birthday

May 17 – Royal plowing ceremony day

June 1st – Children’s day

June 18th – Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk’s birthday

September 22 through the 24 – Pchum Ben day

October 15th – Commemoration day of King Norodom

October 23 – Paris peace accords

october 29 – King Norodom Sihakmoni coronation

November 5th – 7th – Water Festival (maybe…)

November 9th – Independence day

December 10th – Human Rights day

There are many holidays in Cambodia, maybe the most in the world.  I hope these Cambodian dates help you plan in advance. Maybe soon Ill do some articles on some of the bigger holidays in Cambodia :).

 

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Top 5 Most Romantic Restaurants in Phnom Penh

eclipse sky bar in phnom penh

 

Eclipse Sky Bar – This restaurant is located on Monivong in the Phnom Penh Tower. The parking garage is off of Monivong, and you take the elevator to the 22nd floor and walk up one more level to where the rooftop bar is located. The restaurant has really nice views of Phnom Penh. The bar can be busy, so be prepared for a wait during any holidays or during the night time dinner rush.

titanic restaurant in phnom penh

Titanic Restaurant = This elegant resaurant is located on the sisowath quay, but is actually on the riverside of the road. Its location is next to the boating dock that offers the 5 dollar (10,000 riel for cambodians 🙁 ) boat cruise. Or it is close to the night market or street 104. This restaurant has khmer and western food, but the food isnt really that special. It is good, but the ambiance is awesome. They have aspara dancers that do awesome shows, and the view of the river is tremendous. The price is pretty reasonable too, plan on spending around 10 dollars for a dish.

boat noodle restaurant in phnom penh

Boat noodle restaurant – I believe there are two, but have only eaten at the one close to naga world. The restaurant is located by the independence roundabout and the “white building” on Sothearos Blvd. Make sure you get a “table” in the upstairs. When you are walking upstairs, you will take off your shoes and will be walked to a low level table. You will sit on mats on the side. The food is all khmer, but is really cheap and tasty. If you get a food induced coma, it is okay to use the pillows and take a quick cat nap right there!

 

duck restaurant in phnom penh

Duck – A trendy restaurant that is super close to the above mentioned restaurant. This is on Sothearos blvd too….The downside to this restaurant is your eating a pretty expensive meal while the “white building” is across the street. Besides that the food is fancy, tastes good, and the service is excellent. You feel as if your in a different city, like bangkok or something more modern.

quitapenas restaurant in phnom penhFor something a little different try Quitapenas, located on street 264 and 19 (think Wat Bottom or somewhat close to royal palace). This Spanish restaurant is just great, the food and service are outstanding. Id suggest getting a couple different types of tapas and a bottle of wine and share your meal with your date.  The price is a little pricy (think $50-75 dollars for a date including a bottle of wine), but Id suggest this restaurant anytime.

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Cambodian visa

Cambodian visas

When you enter Cambodia you will get a one month visa on arrival. This can be achieved 3 ways. The first one is through an international airport like phnom penh or siem reap. The second is crossing a land border at Poipet, Koh Kong, or numerous other border crossings. The third was is to use the internet and get a “e-visa”.

If you want to come for 30 days or less then get a tourist visa. This visa costs 20 dollars and  is valid only once and grants you 30 days in the Kingdom. You can extend for ONE more 30 day period that will cost around another 45 dollars.  You will need a passport photo, or if you forget or dont have a dollar or two will take place of the photo.

Let’s say you want to stay longer then 60 days or plan to travel in and out of the country a lot. I suggest you ask for an “ordinary” or “business” visa. You can not do an E-visa for this type of visa This is 25 dollars and is valid only for 30 days.Some land crossings will ask for extra money or say you need paperwork to show you are doing business. This is not true, and it is up to you on how long you want to sit at the office waiting to get in for the non bribed price.

This visa can be extended for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. The six and twelve month options will allow multiple entries, IE can leave and re-enter without getting a new visa. You will need a travel agent to extend your initial one month visa. A 6 month is around 150 dollars and the year is around 285 dollars.

**another scam at land border crossings is officials trying to get you to pay in Thai baht at horrible exchange rates….1000 baht is usually quoted.  Also guys will come up and ask you if you need help, wave them away unless you want them to ask (demand) money at the end for helping get you through when you dont really need help, it is very simple to cross the border.

Hope this helps!

 

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The Megastar Fruit – Durian

Durian season is upon us in Cambodia.  You can find durian in BKK1 market, o’russey, toul toam poung, or pretty much any market! Most people know of it as a smelly fruit, but it is much more then that. Kampot durian is known to be one of the worlds best (it costs two times as much a thai durian). Kampot even has a durian monument!

Durian monument in kampot cambodia
Durian Statue!

The word durian can be pronounced in Khmer as thouren or written in Khmer as ធូរេន. The fruit is very tasty, I highly recommend you try one! It looks like it has brown spikes on the outside with a greenish skin, and inside is a creamy yellow stuff.  If trying fresh durian isn’t that great, try durian ice cream or rice with durian and coconut milk…They even have durian chips!

One more odd fact about Durians in Cambodia is there is a band called Durians!! There facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Durian-A-funk-band-in-the-pocket-on-the-grind/151884064910623

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Top Five Khmer Foods to eat before you die!

khmer foods t shirt reading keep calm and eat prahok.5.) Baguettes*

The french left some interesting architecture and food influence on Cambodia. I love baguettes, especilly when I see a lady with a basket full of fresh bread. Its so delicious and I can enjoy without the use of jelly or butter. Not only is the taste divine, the smell of a fresh loaf is amazing.

If you want you can put jelly, butter, cheese or sardines in tomato sauce into the baguette. Actually anything you put in the baguette will taste excellent lol.

Another example of putting something in the baguette is ording an egg omelet and stuffing that inside and then dipping the sandwich into a mixture of  dtuk dtrey (fish sauce) and a couple of chillies mixed in the sauce.

4. Samlor Machou Yuon

Samlor Machou mean sour soup and yuon means vietnamese or a racial slur for vietnamese. Here it is not used as a slur and can be called samlor machou yuon. The great thing about Cambodian cuisine is the mixture of the French, Viets, Thais, and Chinese elements in the food. All parts of these cultures have been mixed up and become uniquely Khmer.

3.) Kampot Pepper

Kampot pepper was world renowned pre KR days, but it is starting to become in vogue again. It is hard to write about pepper being a must eat, but to me Kampot pepper is a lot better then the run of the mill pepper.

2.) Fish Amok

Amok dtrey or fish aok is excellent. The fish is coated in coconut milk and kroeung and steamed or cooked. There are many different recipes that differ a little bit. Here is a good recipe for trying Fish Amok.

1.) Prahok

The main typical cambodian dish. Prahok is salted, fermented fish paste that can be eaten alone, with rice, or used as a condiment on pretty much anything. Some people hate and some love it. If you have never ate Prahok, well you never really eaten Cambodian Food

 

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Khmer Teacher Vanna Q&A Session

Interview with Khmer Teacher Vanna

Today is a general Q&A session with Khmer teacher Miss Vanna.

Q: How did you get started doing Khmer Lessons?Khmer teacher Vanna

I was working at a restaurant part time and the owner was giving Chinese lessons to students. She thought it would be nice if I could give some lessons to students and teach them Khmer. So my tutoring career started.

Q: How did you progress to becoming a Skype teacher and running a website.

I had no plans for Skype lessons until a student was leaving to go back his home country. He asked me if he could continue by Skype, and then a light bulb went off. There are many Khmer teachers out in Phnom Penh, some good some bad, but my research showed there were not one reliable Khmer teacher available by Skype.

Q: And the website?

Well I have no knowledge on websites, programming or anything technical in those matters. I was lucky enough to have a student who set up the website and taught me how to post via WordPress. WordPress is extremely easy, and anytime I have a question I have a friend I can ask which is great.

Q: What countries do the students come from?

All different ones…The usually country is Australia and England with some Americans. But there are a lot of European non native English speakers that are learning Khmer and they do really well. I have even had a student from Brazil!

Q: Skype lessons cant be as good as 1 on 1 lessons face to face?

  1. Well first there is no need to commute. Traffic in Phnom Penh is getting worse and worse. This saves time (more to time to study for free!), petrol, and not breathing pollution.
  2. Second reason is time availability. Some of my students are very busy and they work lots of hours and then go home and want to spend their available time with their families. So the student will get on Skype at work (either lunch or free time) and do an hour lesson. It kills dead time and increase productivity while not cutting into family time.
  3. The third reason and the usual main reason students take Skype lessons is that simply there is not one native Khmer teacher available in their city. So necessity brings upon lessons by Skype.

Q: Hardest part of your business?

Trying to make YouTube videos and editing them. It is very time consuming, and extremely hard for me to edit them. Hopefully with more practice I will get better and faster :).

Q: Was your goal as a kid to always be a Khmer teacher?

Absolutely not! I want to eventually open up my own restaurant where I will serve food. Now since I started teaching I realized I loved it, and thus my goal is one day to have a restaurant and have Khmer lessons available on site. Right now, if you ask someone if they recommend a Khmer teacher you will get 10 different answers from 10 different people. I want to have the best reputation and have people say if you want to learn Khmer, you have to study with Vanna. And maybe they get hungry and want to eat some of my food too.

Q: Advice for someone trying to learn Khmer?

I wrote an article to described the biggest ten mistakes when learning Khmer and I really think that article has a lot of good information. Not only for Khmer, but for any language. With that said, studying a little bit everyday even just one word is important.

Immersion is also extremely important. Immersion doesn’t have to be literally being in Cambodia, but can also be by listening to music, watching Cambodian movies, or talking with a native Khmer speaker. That native speaker could be a Khmer teacher via Skype or if your lucky enough to live where there is a Khmer restaurant, then just going there and practicing a little bit of what you learned is huge.

Q: Can you tell us something unique about you? Something most people would never guess?

My favorite T.V. show is WWE.

Q: WWE? like wrestling?

Yes! I know it sounds weird, but I have watched it since I was a little girl and continue today. I will stay up till midnight to watch, even after working 8-5 at my office job and then teaching Khmer till 9….My friends make fun of me, but it is something that I love and lets me relax.

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Lessons

Study Khmer – Class Syllabus – Beginner

Study Khmer Syllabus

A. Intro to Study Khmer

This study Khmer syllabus is provided as a general informational guide to help you understand how a study Khmer program would progress. All lessons can be custom tailored to your wants and needs. This syllabus also is assuming you are a complete beginner to studying Khmer.

study khmer syllabus

Lesson 1

  • Greetings
  • Basic questions
  • Numbers 1-100
  • First ten vocabulary words

Lesson 2

  • Numbers 101-1000
  • Vocabulary about things in your house
  • Verb to have
  • Grammar point on the word ‘at’

Lesson 3

  • Vocabulary places
  • Vocabulary sports
  • Ten verbs
  • Verb Combinations

Lesson 4

  • Word ‘to know’
  • colors
  • adjectives
  • tlai = how much?

Lesson 5

  • Tenses
  • Telling time

Lesson 6

  • Days of the week
  • Months
  • Couple of new verbs
  • Grammar about ‘time’

Lesson 7

  • dael & tloab
  • Telephone conversations
  • food

Lesson 8

Lesson 9

Lesson 10

Lesson 11 (if want to learn to read and write, also can be taught concurrent starting with lesson 1 if a student chooses)

Lesson 12

  • 11-20 consonants
  • 8-14 vowels
  • numbers 6-9
  • how to write numbers bigger then 9
  •          IE) 14 = 1 symbol + 4 symbol

****UNDER CONSTRUCTION (Page for study Khmer syllabus will be updated in next couple of days…4.3.2014 Thanks for understanding!)****Updated once, but still needs a lot of work…soon I will add links to everythign that has information attached to it. i hope this helps you study Khmer a little!

 

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Lessons Vocab

Khmer Words for “to need”

study khmer words need

Khmer Words: To Need

Some Khmer words will have two words for only one English equivalent. On example is the verb: to need. The two Khmer words to to need are dtruaw and dtruaw-gaa. These words seem that that both have the same meaning, but really they have two different ways of being used.

First dtuaw means to need to do something….not an object, but more of an action.

  • Kynum dtrauw tov psaa = I need to go to the market.

Dtruaw-gaa means to need something as in needing an object, not an action.

  • Kynum dtruaw-gaa prahok = I need prahok (cambodian food)

So those are the two Khmer words for the English word, ‘to need’. To need is a very important verb to know and understanding that there are 2 khmer words for it is very important.

 

 

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Vocab

Cambodian body parts – vocab 9

Cambodian body parts

vocabulary #9

veak-a-sab bpram-buon

Here are some generic vocabulary words for different Cambodian body parts. Let’s start!

[table]

kluan, body

sauk, hair

mok, face

pnaak, eye

jrau-moh, nose

moat, mouth

jaung-gaa, chin

bau-boo-moat, lips

tmeeñ, teeth

dtrau-jiak, ear

gau, neck

dtruung, chest

knaung, back

bpuah, stomach

dai, arm or hand

mriam-dai, finger

smaa, shoulder

jaung, foot or  leg

mriam-jaung, toe

jong-gong, knee

plul, thigh

sbaek, skin

kua-gbaal, brain

beh-doong, heart

suat, lung

tlaum, liver

[/table]

I hope this table has helped you learn a couple new words about Cambodian body parts.