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Friendly Friday: meet some wedding guests in Cambodia
As we got out of the car we could hear loud music coming from a house just down the road, and equally loud talking on a microphone. It drew us, inevitably, to investigate, and we were very glad that we did so. In the second of my Friendly Friday ‘Meet …’ challenges I would like to take you to a wedding in a small village near Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Gallery: Ta Prohm, Angkor’s Royal Monastery
In a clearing in the jungles of Angkor the Buddhist king King Jayavarman VII built a monastery, Rajavihara, meaning ‘Royal Monastery’. We know it today as Ta Prohm. Here lived more than 12,500 people, including 18 high priests and 615 dancers. The temple was wealthy, amassing riches such as gold, pearls and silks.
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Gallery: getting up close and personal
Like many photographers, I shoot quite a lot of images of flowers and that’s the first thing I think of when asked to showcase macro photography (which technically-speaking I don’t do) or close-up photography (which I do a lot). After that, my next thought will be insects. And I already have a few posts here on those lines. So what to do when Amanda asks for close ups and macros for this week’s Friendly Friday Challenge? The following photos are all taken from my travel archives, specifically my early 2020…
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Gallery: fancy a snack in Spider Town?
About an hour’s drive north of Phnom Penh lies the small market town of Skun. Normally a town like this would attract little attention from passing tourists, eager to reach the wonders of Angkor beyond. But Skun’s market has a treat in store; although that depends perhaps on your appetite for the unusual.
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Eating out with a conscience in Indochina
Eating out is undoubtedly one of the great pleasures of a holiday. Sampling the local cuisine; relaxing over a drink at the end of a busy day; enjoying the ambience of a well-run restaurant with perhaps a great view of the landscape or bustling city streets. But eating out is also a luxury in which relatively few in the world are able to indulge.
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A Sunday evening by the Tonle Sap, Phnom Penh
On a Sunday evening the promenades along Phnom Penh’s two rivers, the Tonle Sap and the Mekong, are thronged with people. Families come out to enjoy the cooling air. Monks in traditional robes sit talking quietly in small groups. Boats ply the waters, ferrying their passengers to the opposite bank or on pleasure cruises.
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Exploring the street food of Phnom Penh
Did you know that the consumption of insects for food has a name, entomophagy? I didn’t, until I visited Cambodia. There, perhaps more than anywhere else, the people actively serve and eat insects. There is a dark reason behind this. Under the Khmer Rouge, much of the population was forced into poverty; and people resorted to feeding on anything they could find.
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Meeting a survivor of S-21, Tuol Sleng
When the Khmer Rouge prison Tuol Sleng, in Phnom Penh, was liberated by the invading Vietnamese army in 1979, the guards killed all but a handful of prisoners to try to prevent them telling of the horrors perpetrated there. Chum Mey is just one of thousands who were imprisoned here. He is also just one of a very few to have survived the experience – to have lived to tell that story.
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2020: my (pandemic) year in review
The year that has just past will remain long in all our memories, no doubt, and not for the best of reasons. A year ago the new coronavirus was just seeping into our consciousnesses and we had no idea how it would turn our lives upside down. We certainly know that now!
