Currency
Name Riel
Symbol CR Sample Price Guide
hotel room with air-con US$ 8.00-20.00 restaurant meal US$ 2.00-6.00 newspaper CR 1200 Angkor temples entrance fee US$ 20.00 Internet access per minute US$ 0.50-1.50 Krama (scarf) CR 3000 litre of petrol CR 3000 litre of water CR 500-2000 large bottle of Angkor beer US$ 1.50-2.50 noodle soup CR 2000-4000 souvenir t-shirt US$ 2.00 Average Room Prices
Low Mid High
US$2-15 US$10-25 US$25+
Average Meal Prices
Low Mid High
US$2-3 US$3-5 US$5+

Cambodia: Getting there & around

Getting There
Bangkok is the easiest place to pick up a flight to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. Flights to the capital also fly out of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Vientiane and Guangzhou. There are also budget airlines connecting Cambodia with Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The major airport is 7km (4mi) west of Phnom Penh. You can catch a taxi to the centre relatively cheaply, and the even cheaper motos charge per passenger. Be prepared to pay a departure tax when you leave. The land route will be vastly improved when the road linking Phnom Penh with the Thai border at Poipet is upgraded, but there are no firm plans to improve the diabolical road to Siem Reap. A combination of boats and buses will eventually ferry you from Thailand’s Trat Province to the coastal town of Krong Koh Kong. Buses and shared taxis will get you to Vietnam’s entry point at Moc Bai. The land border with Laos opened briefly but has since closed.

Getting Around
Flying is the quickest (and of course most expensive) way of getting to places like Angkor and Ratanakiri. Road travel is safer than it’s been for years, and most of the main roads are now in pretty good shape thanks to international assistance. Train travel is just about possible if you negotiate a space on a cargo service – but the journey will take much longer than by bus. With some 1900km (1180mi) of navigable waterways to utilise, boats play a major role in getting around. The most popular services operate between the capital and Siem Reap – the express service cuts the journey time down to a mere five hours. An effective local bus network makes travel to sights around Phnom Penh much easier than driving, particularly as cars can only be hired with a driver – and when you look at some of the country’s highways from hell, perhaps that’s all for the best. Taxis are more common in the cities these days, and cyclos and motos (small motorcycles) can be flagged down for short hops.

Cambodia: History

Pre-20th-Century History
Very little is known about prehistoric Cambodia, although archeological evidence has established that prior to 1000 BC Cambodians subsisted on a diet of fish and rice and lived in houses on stilts, as they still do today. From the 1st to the 6th centuries, much of Cambodia belonged to the southeast Asian kingdom of Funan, which played a vital role in developing the political institutions, culture and art of later Khmer states. However, it was the Angkorian era, beginning in 802, that really transformed the kingdom into a political, cultural and spiritual powerhouse.