This tower was built by the French in the early 1900’s to guard the river, presumably against invaders or pirates. It’s fascinated me ever since I was in high school. We first drove through Kampong Cham in 2001, and I couldn’t get over how stately and old-world the tower looked, perched on the edge of […]
Sunset over the Mekong river. Just shot this about 10 minutes ago, off of my hotel balcony in Kratie. Back in 2006 when I was traveling through Kracheh, I actually took a photo from this exact spot (same river, same hotel, same balcony), and posted it to Flickr. It was one of my earliest photos, […]
The gorgeous Sesan river in Ratanakiri, Northeast Cambodia. If the planned Lower Sesan 3 and 4 dams are approved by the government (and financed by a Chinese or Vietnamese company), all of this will be under water someday; the Brao people, who’ve lived here for thousands of years, will be see their ancestral lands disappear. […]
Attapeu, Laos. Attapeu was interesting and pretty far off the beaten path. I spent a few days exploring south of the Bolevan Platteau, looking for minority villages. I found a vast HAGL rubber plantation and a lot of illegal lumber while I was at it…. HAGL has made news in England recently for its ties […]
I finally indulged my dream of camping on the beach a couple weeks ago. We were waaaay out in the middle of nowhere, miles downriver from Taveng (which is already just an outpost in the middle nowhere), just a few miles south of the National park. We drove out onto the beach in the 4-Runner […]
Dugout canoes act as ferrys across this section of the Sesan river. Note the guy sitting on his motorbike on the boat. 50 cents gets you across. Occasionally, something will go wrong and it’ll capsize, gracefully depositing the motorcycles on the river bottom. I’ve known a couple of people who it’s happened to; in fact, […]