Pchum Ben – Festival of the dead

Offering food and money to the monks

On the weekend Steve’s staff let us tag along with them to a pagoda to make offerings as part of the lead up to Pchum Ben. Pchum Ben is a religious holiday where Cambodians remember their deceased loved ones, and in the two weeks prior to the holiday Cambodia’s temples and pagodas are packed with people bringing food, money and offerings to the monks. Read more about it here.

Our friends decided to go to a poorer pagoda a little outside Phnom Penh, since they figured that those in the city will receive alot of visitors hence alot of money and food – good thinking! We headed across the Japanese bridge then out of town for a while to reach the temple. We certainly attracted a bit of attention (in a good way) and as usual our baby was a hit! There were people videotaping us and cute little toothless old people taking our photo.

Here are some more photos from the morning (by the way, I didn’t realise females are supposed to wear white so I’m wearing a hot pink t-shirt! Being a clueless barang I think I was forgiven).


I heart Phnom Penh


I love PP and I also love this idea – using the I love NY logo in an ode to Phnom Penh. This came about via a new art exhibition by Panca Evenblij that opened on Thursday at Phnom Penh’s Java Cafe & Gallery. It was all about reflections on life in the city with photos, installations and more, plus cool I love PP merchandise for sale, which people were so excited about it may have been the highlight of the opening! We bought a baby outfit for Zara featuring the logo – so cute.

A girl is on the move…to Saigon!

Now I’m glad this blog is called A Girl in Asia rather than A Girl in Cambodia – as a move to Saigon is imminent!

After nearly 2.5 years in Phnom Penh it’ll be sad to leave in some ways, yet it’s onwards and upwards to slightly more dynamic and cosmopolitan Saigon – a city that’s almost unrecognisable from ten years ago. Sure, there are still a few cone-hatted oldies roaming the streets but those streets are also home to glittering restaurants, chic bars, 5 star hotels, shops including Louis Vuitton and Gucci (real ones, not knock-offs!) – even Chloe and Marc Jacobs have opened their doors. But the great thing about Saigon is the contrast – a few metres down the road from the high-end stores might be a local restaurant where a steaming bowl of pho will set you back a few thousand dong. There are fantastic, bustling local markets and cheap finds galore, plus all the western comforts you could ask for too. It’s the perfect blend of old and new, Asian and western, local and expat…ok, you get the point!

Although I have visited Saigon plenty of times, I’m really looking forward to exploring the city further and getting to know it in more depth and attempting to learn some Vietnamese. But before heading off, I really need to do a few more all-important Phnom Penh posts. Coming soon – my ultimate Phnom Penh day, and things I wish I knew when I first moved to Phnom Penh…

Back to the Penh: Top 5 things I’ll miss about Bangkok


The time has finally come to bid farewell to Bangkok and return home to Phnom Penh. We ended up in Bangkok longer than expected due to the lengthy process of getting baby Z a birth certificate then Australian citizenship, and finally, an Australian passport.

Pre-baby, our stay here provided a chance to further explore Bangkok (particularly its cafes, shops and restaurants!) and proved that if an opportunity to live here ever arose in future, we’d be more than happy to relocate. Here are the Top 5 things I’ll miss most:

1. Tasty Thai food – especially from our cheap local Thai eatery (I don’t know the English name as the sign’s only in Thai :-). In particular – their larb gai, beef yum and super sweet lemongrass ‘juice’

2. Polite people – from being given seats on the skytrain to having random strangers stop crazy traffic to let us cross the road, I’ll miss the (mostly) genuine and kind people we’ve encountered

3. Foot and head massages at our local massage parlour (although there are massages aplenty in Phnom Penh, there’s just something about Thai massage…)

4. iberry – the best…ice-cream…ever! I’m in love with their Thai flavoured sorbets (Tamarind, Lychee, Mangosteen, Salted Plum…) and their chocolatey flavours too!

5. The shopping – from battling the crowds at Chatuchak to uncovering cool finds at Suan Lum Night Bazaar, MBK and Siam Square, to ambling around huge, amazing malls like Siam Paragon, Bangkok shopping cannot be beaten

So now it’s time to head back to our dusty little Phnom Penh abode with baby in tow…and this blog can return to being Cambodia-focused once again!

A baby in Asia!


I haven’t posted anything in a while – I’ve been busy having and looking after our new baby, Zara Mae!

Expat ramblings

I’ve just been interviewed by Expat Interviews – an online resource for those wondering what expat life in a particular region or country is like – on the good bits, the bad bits, the cost of living, red tape and more.

Run by Dutch Victor and Filipina Lizza, the site contains interviews with expats from all over the world and also has an expat forum (which seems to just be getting off the ground) for discussion on moving and living overseas. Most of the interviewees are fellow bloggers, so it’s also a great resource for finding out about other blogs you may interested in.

Here’s my interview…!

Phnom Penh’s new rag


Last Thursday night saw the launch of a new addition to the Phnom Penh media scene – a weekly mag called The Advisor, published by the people behind the Expat Advisory Service website.

Offering event listings and a free classified section, the first edition of The Advisor also has a few interesting features including a piece on Khmer artist Riem Em and an article on ‘Globesity’, mentioning a startling prediction by WHO that 25% of Cambodia’s population could be overweight by 2015!

Being in Bangkok means I missed the mag’s launch at Chow but it sounds like it was a great night…and the availability of more reading material in Phnom Penh is always a good thing.

A new (temporary) home in Bangkok


I’ve just relocated from Phnom Penh to Bangkok for around 6 weeks. Bangkok has long felt like a home away from home, with countless visits paid from pitstops on backpacking trips, to holidays from Australia and most recently, long weekend getaways out of Phnom Penh. I love Bangkok’s energy and its endless supply of things to see and do, not to mention the amazing shopping and food on offer (and the fact there are ‘real’ cinemas, unlike Phnom Penh!).

Along with my real purpose for being in Bangkok (having a baby) I also hope to eat, shop and explore enough to write some interesting Thai-flavoured posts, coming soon!

A visit to Cambodian artist Chhim Sothy

Today we had the pleasure of visiting the home and studio of established Cambodian artist Chhim Sothy. After noticing his work at a few exhibitions around town and in local magazine Touchstone we contacted Sothy to ask if we could see more of his art, to which he obliged.

In his late 30s, Sothy has lived, studied and exhibited abroad, which is reflected in his style fusing traditional Cambodian imagery with other influences. Though many of his paintings are celebrations of colour at first glance, some contain hints about Cambodia’s past. Sothy is about to show some of his works at Phnom Penh’s Ocean Restaurant, then is off to exhibit in Jakarta.

I would love to own some of his art as the ultimate Cambodian memento, though sifting through his extensive stacks of paintings makes the decision about which piece to buy a very difficult one!

Image via Saklapel