Cambodia

Phnom Penh: City of Contrasts

Cambodia's capital is a city that carries its history openly. The Royal Palace gleams along the Tonle Sap riverfront while the nearby Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum bears unflinching witness to the Khmer Rouge era. That combination of splendour and sobering memorial is part of what makes Phnom Penh so compelling. Between them, the riverside promenade, a booming restaurant scene, and some of South-East Asia's most inventive cocktail bars make the city far more than a transit stop.

Coast, Rivers and the Mekong Basin

The Gulf of Thailand coast around Preah Sihanouk offers a very different Cambodia: white-sand beaches, offshore islands, and a frontier energy that still feels a long way from the resort mainstream. Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem are the standout islands, with bioluminescent bays and long stretches of near-deserted beach. Inland, the Tonle Sap lake is the largest freshwater lake in South-East Asia, swelling dramatically each wet season and sustaining extraordinary biodiversity alongside the floating villages that have existed on its waters for generations.

Khmer Food and Market Culture

Cambodian cuisine is built around fresh herbs, galangal, lemongrass and the fermented fish paste prahok that underpins much of the country's cooking. Amok, a coconut-steamed fish curry cooked in banana leaf, is the national dish in name and spirit. Markets are the best way in: Phnom Penh's Orussey Market and the night markets of Siem Reap are vivid, fragrant, and entirely unpretentious. Street food culture runs deep, from baguette sandwiches left over from French colonial days to grilled corn and fresh sugarcane juice.