I Collect Light

...and pieces of life...

 

Smoked Fish

April 26, 2013  •  Leave a Comment
Fresh, smoked, raw, dried and fermented fish of all kinds lends a special type of power to Cambodian cuisine. Fish in one of these forms can be found in most of the nations dishes. To make smoked fish, villagers have the fish gutted then threaded them by the dozen onto skewers. They lay the skewers out on bamboo grills and smoke them over an open...
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The Killing Fields

April 26, 2013  •  Leave a Comment
In Cambodia, 9miles from Phnom Penh, the killing fields of Choeung Ek is both horrifying and heart-wrenching. Choeung Ek is one of thousands of other such sites around the country where the Khmer Rouge practiced genocide during the late 70s. From 1975 to 1979 Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge soldiers killed 1.7 million Cambodians or 21% of the populatio...
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Angkor Temples

April 23, 2013  •  Leave a Comment
It was about 4am but thousands and thousands of tourists were flowing in from all directions. I'm guessing people were trying to escape the intense heat of Siem Reap during the day as well as catch the famous sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple complex. I saw many business opportunities but there was only one little street cart selling coffee and cr...
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Land of Sweet Tree

April 23, 2013  •  Leave a Comment
I'm pretty sure I have eaten sugar palm in lots of foods but I had just never seen the sugar palm trees or understood how the sugar came about from the trees. In Khmer they are thnôt. Thnôt symbolize the birth of the Khmer soul, I was told, because they began to grow from the very same moment the first Khmer walked in Cambodia. In Cambodia the sug...
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Life on Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

April 16, 2013  •  1 Comment
Be a culture vulture. See and feel the differences. After 1.5 days of exploring the temples of Angkor Wat, I was ready to see something different about Siem Reap, Cambodia. The locals suggested that I visit the floating villages of Chong Kneas and Kompong Phluk on Tonle Sap Lake. Chong Kneas is rated quite low online due to it being the most heavi...
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