{"id":3262,"date":"2026-03-21T04:59:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T04:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=3262"},"modified":"2026-04-25T22:52:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T22:52:59","slug":"fri-20-mar-koh-rong-to-phnom-penh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=3262","title":{"rendered":"Fri 20 Mar – Koh Rong to Phnom Penh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My trip in Cambodia is pretty much over and so is my holiday as a whole. Returning to work on Monday is close in time but not in geography, so it doesn’t feel real yet. This is the penultimate blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We take the ferry back to the mainland and then drive back to Phnom Penh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tour has been good. I’ve learnt about the country, which in reality is still recovering from years of personal and economic trauma. The group has been (mostly) cohesive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a lot of driving though as a result of an amended itinerary that kept us away from the Thailand border. This was a detriment. Also, the accommodation has been quite poor. Four nights out of fourteen were without windows. Every single bathroom was mouldy, all the buildings in some state of disrepair. The trip cost A$3,100 with the tour company, and then I estimate that there was another A$700 in personal expenses (meals, shopping, tips, taxis). My flights were approximately A$1,500 return. So these two weeks came to a little over 5k AUD. Maybe Thailand and Laos was very roughly another 3.5k AUD for me (the Gibbon Experience, Thailand Trek and Luang Prabang were the highest expenses, around 600 AUD each). I’d be comfortable saying the whole five weeks were under 10k AUD for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cost isn’t really a big deal but it’s incredible to think I easily spend half of this in Sydney on rent and bus fare and food over five weeks. The good Canadian retired a year ago and is travelling around South East Asia for six months deciding where to move to for a few years. From a lifestyle point of view retiring in South East Asia has a huge appeal – it feels as though money would be no object. The main issue I imagine is access to acceptable health care – presumably you go to Thailand for that. Our tour guide was saying he was growing up healthcare = witch doctor and natural remedies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All the abandoned projects have made\u00a0the now-Chinese-owned portside town ugly. This is a random Cambodian town whose only industry is servicing ferries to the islands. There is absolutely no demand for rows and rows of high-rises. Some are taller than most buildings in Phnom Penh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We arrive back in Phnom Penh around 2pm. For my solo activity I go to an Economics Museum. The ethos of the museum is to explain the development of currency and the impacts of that on the country as a whole. I am delighted that this is an offering. Every museum I go to I am indirectly trying to relate events back to the economy, so this is perfect. There should be more of them across the world.

The first claim of the museum is that the ancient Angkor community had no monetary system (specifically, no money) and relied entirely on a bartering system with correlated values of physical items that varied across seasons and geography. Without money, taxes were usually crops, which spoiled quickly and could therefore not be stored for use as salaries of armed forces. Unable to employ a large army, the kingdom was weakened and susceptible to attack from better organised neighbours that had developed a currency. The massive Khmer empire was also very susceptible foreign influence as they relied on trading partners that were able to more effectively specialise with the help of a unitary store of value. Ultimately the lack of currency contributed to its downfall.

The French introduced a common currency to its colonies in the late 19th century, regulated by the now defunct Bank Of Indochina. There were continual issues with this currency (French Indochinese Piastre). Given it was designed for the large rubber companies and not everyday use by the proletariat for things like buying rice and fish, the minimum denomination was too large to be used by the general population. But the main reason for its decline was that it was eventually pegged to the Franc and this became untenable during WW2 (specifically, France deliberately overvalued the Piastre, which meant importing goods in Cambodia for the war was cheaper for France).

The Riel was introduced after independence from France in 1953. The central bank was a total basket case though. For decades it was part of the Executive Branch, controlling both monetary and fiscal policy. It literally can print money to pay down government debt, with no checks and balances. Unsurprisingly, inflation sky rocketed – there were years where inflation was more than 100%.

Then during the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1978) currency was completely abolished. It was illegal to practice any form of commerce, punishable by death. This was a disaster. Without currency, corruption and exploitation was even more rife than before, removing any form of regulation of officials. The Khmer Rouge realised this by the end. In the last few months of the regime before Vietnam took over, the Khmer Rouge tried to implement currency back into the country in order to regain some stability in the economy.

Until the 90s economic recovery was poor. Inflation continued to rise as the central bank printed money to try and fund some kind of return to industrial development. GDP was consistently around 6% but that was 6% from an extremely low base (essentially poverty) and was nowhere near enough to be called a recovery.

In the 90s, Cambodia was recognised as in need of financial aid from the global community. Huge amounts of USD were injected. As part of this influx of foreign aid, Cambodia moved closer to a market economy. This is also the reason today that Cambodia has a dual currency – it accepts both Riel and USD everywhere (even tiny individual street food vendors accept USD cash).

Until this point in time, the museum had been informative. But the criticism and honesty I was appreciating broke down for the displays depicting the current globalised era. The signs said that the Riel was floating but it obviously isn’t. For the last five years at least 1000 Riel = 0.25 USD. That is not a floating currency. There’s obviously some political complexity here, akin to how the political system is purportedly a democracy. If I had had more time I would have asked the staff, who were delighted when I bought a ticket in Khmer (Sohm bot mouy).

Anyway after that I got this sugarcane juice and the street food vendor asked me in Khmer how long I had lived in Cambodia after I ordered in Khmer. I felt like a bit of a fake when I had to admit I couldn’t understand anything more complex than the price (buon peon = 4000) but he seemed really chuffed regardless.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I walk along Tonle Sap River until it meets with the Mekong, which takes about half an hour. There’s a nice footpath and even some (admittedly poorly maintained) gym equipment. All the public facilities are being well used on a Friday afternoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There’s so much to Phnom Penh that I didn’t get to see. It’s a city I’d be happy to come back to. It’s got a lot of vibrancy but is not too chaotic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The footpath is packed with locals hanging out, hawkers carrying wide circular trays of goods on their heads, homeless people being moved on from benches by police and pigeons. It’s a good atmosphere – a bit of everything.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picnics galore on these grounds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Everyone wants to set a little birdie free.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fortune telling alley. There was one lady in particular very popular. She had a queue of five people waiting. I am not sure I’d want the other customers eavesdropping on my fortune.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Peak hour ferry commute to the other side of the river… <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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They couldn’t pull up the back of the boat there were so many people on the ferry. They sort of did a half hearted job until the back of the boat slid sufficiently to the middle as a result of the steeper incline and then just took off.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This was one chic monk hopping gracefully out of his tuk-tuk on his way to the ferry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Spring rolls for dinner and a delish passionfruit cocktail. I wasn’t going to get a cocktail but the menu stressed that the two mixologists spent hours and hours crafting the best recipes, and it was good! A win for Cambodian bar tenders! Spring rolls excellent too. Fried food just tastes better in South East Asia. Sorry about the wordy blog post for today, I’ve had a bit of time to kill waiting for my flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3262"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3327,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions\/3327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}