Tripbase charity project – free travel ebooks

Liz / / 4 Comments

The travel secrets I contributed to Tripbase’s ebook project are now online! The travel company has just launched their free ebook series, consisting of 7 different downloadable books featuring tips and tidbits from a whole bunch of travel bloggers from around the world.

My Cambodia tip on handmade, homemade shopping can be found in the Worldwide book, and my tips on Kampot pepper and alcohol shopping are in the Food themed book. The best part of all – Tripbase has promised to donate $1 to charity:water for every person that downloads an ebook (see my blog’s sidebar for a little tally of how much my readers have helped donate). Fun project, Tripbase!

MamaMia Q&A and Irish Wanderings guest post

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Some exciting news (well, for me anyway!) – an email interview I did with MamaMia about expat life in Vietnam was published! For non-Australian readers, MamaMia is the blog brainchild of Mia Freedman – ex-Cosmopolitan magazine editor, author, columnist, tv commentator and much, much more (basically, Australia’s maven of all media!). The website has a HUGE following as evidenced by the sometimes hundreds of comments left for each post. It’s something of an online community conversing on a wide range of issues, from body image to relationships to all sorts of zeitgeisty topics – and more recently, expat life! You can read my interview here.

Also published – a guest post I contributed to Irish Wanderings (learn more about it’s author, Niamh, here). Titled ‘Lost in transition: from traveller to expat’, it’s about the mindset morph I underwent the further entrenched I became in my new life in Asia. Interested to know your thoughts – if you’re an expat, or a traveller, or a traveller turned expat, can you at all relate?

My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets – for Tripbase

Liz / / 5 Comments
Travel ideas website Tripbase have initiated a travel secrets project, where bloggers reveal their best kept travel secrets then tag some fellow bloggers to do the same, with the results to be featured in an upcoming e-book. I was tagged by Cate from Caffeinated Traveller to take part, so here’s my contribution. I’ve decided to base it on the sometimes underrated Cambodian capital (and my former home of 2 and a half years!) Phnom Penh…

Phnom Penh – more than just girlie bars and gunfights!

Dusty, friendly, charming Phnom Penh is often overshadowed by tourist drawcard Siem Reap, with some tourists skipping the capital altogether in favour of non-stop temple exploration at Angkor Wat. Yes, Siem Reap is a fantastic place to visit, but Phnom Penh shouldn’t be forgotten! With its cliched reputation as a somewhat dangerous city where the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng genocide museum rate highly on most visitors’ must-see lists, its more cosmopolitan aspects are a revelation to those not already in the Phnom Penh know. And it offers some of the best bargains in Asia, or perhaps anywhere!! Here are but a few good things about ‘the Penh’:

Street 240’s Bliss (by name and by nature)

1. Handmade, homemade, unique shopping
A combination of factors make Phnom Penh a perfect place for some serious retail therapy. Firstly, Cambodian silk from nearby towns and villages like Takeo feature heavily in the city’s many tiny boutiques. The silk is of high quality and great value for money, with some places (like Sentosa Silk and Tabitha) selling rough or smooth varieties in a rainbow of colours for US$8-10 a metre. Cushions, bedspreads, bags and clothing made of Cambodian silk are all fantastic and unique buys.

A silk weaver at work at the aptly named ‘Silk Island’ just outside Phnom Penh

The proliferation of NGOs in the city who engage Cambodia’s needy with crafty pursuits means there are lots of unique, handmade items for sale, like wallets and bags made of recycled rice bags, handsewn soft toys for children and all things rattan for very low prices. Then there’s the influx of talented foreigners who have set up shop in the capital, resulting in some gorgeous boutiques combining European style with Cambodian artistry. Street 240 is the place to head (especially clothing and homeware store Bliss, which also houses a spa, and Waterlily for creative handmade jewellery). I could go on and on, but you’ll have to explore for yourself!!
2. Fragrant, coveted Cambodian pepper

Pepper grown in Cambodia’s south (predominantly the charming, crumbling, riverside town of Kampot) is highly fragrant and an integral part of Cambodian cuisine. In French colonial days it was highly coveted by French chefs, and graced the menus of top Paris restaurants. A resurgence of the pepper industry in recent years means Phnom Penhites are spoiled with some of the finest pepper in the world at their gastronomic disposal. The pepper is sold all over the city in souvenir-ey type shops, but for a only a few dollars you can pick up a bag of Cambodian peppercorns (organic, no less!) from Lucky or Pencil Supermarkets.

Charming Kampot – Cambodian pepper HQ
3. Ridiculously cheap alcohol
Thanks to Cambodia’s laxness with tax and penchant for all kinds of shady cross-border trade, alcohol is exceedingly cheap. Most bars will pass on the savings (think cocktails for around US$3-4 and beers from $1!) but the real bargains are to be found in the city’s supermarkets (with especially good selections at Thai Huot, Bayon and Pencil). Basic spirits like Stolichnya and Absolut vodka can be found from US$6-9, Bailey’s for US$11-12 and Grand Marnier for US$16, with everything else somewhere in between. It’s a recipe for disaster for some off the rails expats, but really, who’s complaining?!
Now for the tagging part… I’m nominating the following bloggers to share their travel secrets too:
1. Charlie from Bali Beach Bunny
2. Marie from Shantiwallah
3. Vivian from Lost in Translation

Guest post on Ever the Nomad

Liz / / 1 Comment


A guest post I’ve written on Saigon has been published on cool travel blog, Ever the Nomad (am feeling a bit like a one-girl cheer squad for Saigon right now!).

Ever the Nomad is a blog by Anja Mutic, a Croatian born travel writer, photographer and globetrotter extraordinaire who has called Brooklyn home for the last 10 years. She makes a living from flitting around the globe updating guidebooks, writing for travel publications and making short travel films for Lonely Planet TV (jealous? me??!). Anja’s blog is worth checking out for the other guest posts, accounts of her travels and cool bits of New York (like photos of street art) – pretty inspiring!

More love…this time it’s all of Saigon!

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So now you that know why I love my neighbourhood, find out why I ‘heart’ my whole city – my contribution to National Geographic Traveler’s Intelligent Travel blogs’ I Heart My City series has just been published!

Own city aside, I love the sound of Portland, after reading the other profiles – farmers markets, cool cafes, independent shops…sounds perfect (except for all the rain). If your city has yet to be featured and you think it should, here is the questionnaire…

What to do on a short trip to Saigon

Liz / / 6 Comments

Treats at TIB Express
I’m a huge fan of the Asian city mini-break. Eating, drinking, shopping and jaunting around a cool metropolis, with a smattering of obligatory sightseeing thrown in – what’s not to love?! For those similarly enamoured with such breaks and perhaps planning a Saigon version, check out this piece I recently wrote for About.com’s Southeast Asia Travel site. It’s always hard to narrow down a great selection of restaurants, bars, shops and sites for one short itinerary but the article hopefully captures a little slice of Saigon’s ‘best of’!

Remembering Phnom Penh

Liz / / 2 Comments

I arrived home in Saigon to a surprise package – the latest LUXE city guide to Cambodia & Laos had arrived (with the Phnom Penh section researched and updated bymoi!). In case you haven’t heard of LUXE, they are a series of compact little fold-out guides containing inside knowledge on the best shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels and spas a city has to offer, conveyed in an irreverant, hilarious style.

Seeing the finished product made me a bit nostalgic for Phnom Penh and all my favourite old haunts. I really, really look forward to a short break there some time soon to get reacquainted with them.
Aside from the great food and shopping scenes (and friendly people) there’s something else about Phnom Penh I miss too – a certain unique vibe the city emanates. I think it comes from a combination of its compact size, active art community, feelgood NGO initiatives (like streetkid run restaurants and silk shops supporting underprivileged women), and the ever-present reminders that the country is a Buddhist one (orange robed monks collecting alms; temples, incense and offerings…). Being away from Phnom Penh makes me appreciate the things I really loved about living there.

A Girl in Asia on About.com

Liz / / 2 Comments

I recently discovered that comprehensive website About.com has a Southeast Asia section containing travel advice, forums and a blog spanning a wide variety of topics regarding travel in the region. Some Phnom Penh advice from yours truly appears in the latest post by blogger and writer Mike Aquino – here. Of course, it’s shopping and restaurant oriented – just doing my bit to spread the Phnom Penh word! Speaking of which – I still can’t believe I’ve left Cambodia. Living out of a suitcase (or 10, actually maybe more) in a hotel room in Saigon is only fun for so many days. I’m really looking forward to finding a real place to live, and soon!

Though we’ve just moved to Vietnam we’re still off to Singapore in a week’s time, a trip we booked ages ago. I found a few ideas about places to check out on the About.com Singapore page, and now I need to find some cool Singapore blogs for more. It’s interesting that a few short years ago mainstream guidebooks were the main go-to source of travel information. These days a combination of in the know guidebooks (like LUXE city guides), blogs and picking up expat magazines or street press on arrival are how I (and presumably many others) prefer to get my travel tips.
And speaking of which – my priority (besides house-hunting, Singapore trip planning and a million other things) is to get my head around everything Saigon has to offer – after knowing where to go and what to do in Phnom Penh inside out, this will be a much more challenging task!