It wasn’t that long ago that I first visited Phnom Penh. I think the first time was in 2005, and it’s amazing how much the place has changed, mostly for the better, but the pace and degree of change is a little worrisome. When I first visited, almost every road in the city was badly in need of re-paving, and there was trash piled up everywhere.

Today, the city is much cleaner than it was, and it’s rare to come across a street that needs paving. Unfortunately, those nicely paved streets are increasingly full of cars, as well as massive numbers of motorcycles driven by madmen. There actually is something resembling a rush hour now, when those picturesque wide boulevards are almost impossible for pedestrians to cross.

Modernization didn’t stop with paved streets, of course. In the last year or so several high-rise buildings have appeared on the skyline, although only one or two are completed so far. It doesn’t appear there will be anything too ugly, but there won’t be any notable structures either.

Up to now, the new buildings haven’t significantly impacted the rich architectural history of Phnom Penh, which was one of the five things I like about Phnom Penh, although that is definitely at risk. No, for now the question is: Will the rush to modernize cause Phnom Penh to lose that special laid-back feeling that makes the city such a pleasant place to be?

Truth be told, there aren’t that many sights in Phnom Penh. You can see most of what there is in a day or less, but what makes the city worth a few days, in my opinion, is the pleasant atmosphere of walk-able streets, great cafés and the overall easy livability of the city. All that is at risk if the city gets over-developed. Like so many popular destinations in Southeast Asia, over-development could make Phnom Penh lose the very thing that attracts people there in the first place.

For starters, the market in nearby Tomohon is a feast for the senses, although parts of it require a strong stomach. There are fresh produce, flowers, and just about anything else people might need for their daily lives.

Tomohon market

A surprisingly short drive from the market at Tomohon will bring you to the Mahawu Volcano, a small but active crater. You can hike up to the rim, where on a clear day you can see all the way to Manado, Bunaken and beyond.

The crater of Mahawu Volcano

The fantastic house-building village which I previously posted about is also near Tomohon.

The emerald green Lake Linow

Yet another volcano to visit in the area is Lake Linow, a water filled crater with several vents around its rim as well as under water. The changing balance of chemicals in the gases causes the lake to change color from time to time. It can be anything from emerald green to red to deep blue.

On my next visit to the area – and I definitely hope there will be one – I’d like to spend the night in the Tangkoko Nature Reserve, where I might see the tiny tarsier monkey as well as a lot of other exotic wildlife. I might also sample the white-water rafting.

Manado-based Safari Tours proved to be a great tour company to work with. They organized everything regarding my trip and took care of every little detail from transportation to admissions.

One of the places I was taken was the village of Woloan. The village is known throughout Indonesia for it’s unique craft. Anyone who has visited Southeast Asia knows that craft villages are very common. However, the speciality of Woloan is rather unique. The local handicraft is houses. No, not model houses. Real houses. The kind you live in.

Rows of homes being readied for delivery.

The houses are made from local hardwood using traditional methods that allows them to be easily knocked down and moved. While there are several basic plans to choose from, each buyer can customise them as much as they like. There are dozens of houses lining the street near the village, each one different.

A small house just being finished.

I checked out one nearly finished house, and it felt quite solid. It generally takes less than two months to complete a house, a day or two to dismantle it for shipping, and a week or two to rebuild it on the owner’s property. People come from all around Indonesia to buy houses here, and they’ve even shipped them as far away as Norway. The price is quite cheap, but there’s no plumbing or electricity installed. All that has to be added on site.

The stop in Woloan was part of a day trip organized through Manado Safari Tours.

I may get more adventurous tomorrow and bring my underwater housing so I can closer to the action without worrying about the camera. So, there may be more photos to come.

Now, I’ve never suggested that Phnom Penh was a destination in itself. You wouldn’t fly all the way from North America or Europe just to visit Phnom Penh, but as part of a trip to see the temples of Angkor, the Cambodian capital makes a nice "decompression stop" to relax and take things easy after several days spent exploring the ancient temples. There are things to see and do in Phnom Penh, but it’s more a place of atmosphere, where you can take it easy and just soak it all in.

Granted, there are other places that might fit the bill, but here’s my five reasons why I like Phnom Penh:

1. It’s not Bangkok
   Bangkok is a crazy, maddening place that never sleeps and nothing ever makes sense. I love it. As much as I’ve tried to wrap my head around living somewhere else in the last few years, I just can’t do it. Still, I am a traveler, so as much as Bangkok is my "home", the urge to go someplace else for a while is never far away. While I may like to get away from Bangkok from time to time, I’m still something of a city-person, so my preferred getaway destinations are still cities. But as cities go, Phnom Penh is, figuratively, as far away from Bangkok as you can get in an hour. Vietianne also fits this bill, but not quite as well.
2. Architecture
   A long time ago, I planned to be an architect. I even spent the five years in university to get a degree in it, but that was several careers ago. However, I still have an interest in architecture, which probably explains my fascination with every pile of stones that dots the region. But it doesn’t have to be old to interest me, and Phnom Penh has probably the best collection of pre-modern architecture in Southeast Asia. There are some lovely old colonial era villas, in various states of decay, as well as some fine art deco and modern public structures built in the post-independence years. There are, as yet, no high rises in the city, although I don’t think that will last much longer. There’s even an organization that offers Khmer Architecture Tours.
3. Boutique Beds
   Phnom Penh seems to exist in some kind of strange hotel chain-free zone, devoid of any international hotel brands, save for a single Intercontinental hotel and the Raffles affiliated Le Royal. This has left the market wide open for a cornucopia of small hotels and guesthouses. Many of these places make use of the old villas and shop-houses that dot the city, especially the quay-side. I’ve stayed in several of them now. Each has its own charms, and all have the pleasure of staying in a small hotel with character.
4. Fantastic Food
   Southeast Asia is a foodies paradise. It’s hard to beat the native foods of Thailand, or Cambodia for that matter. But variety, as they say, is the spice of life. Phnom Penh is second only to Siem Reap in the number of great restaurants, cafés and coffee shops. There’s probably the best Khmer restaurant, Malis, as well as what may be the best cookies in Southeast Asia at Java Gallery.
5. Dancing in the Park After Dark
   One of the things that struck me on my most recent trip in December 2009 is how much the locals seem to enjoy the city’s many open spaces at night. Once night falls, almost every park is filled with locals hanging out, eating or dancing. Yes, you read that right, dancing. I found this activity happening at the park in front of Wat Botum, near the Royal Palace. The park was filled with people, and projection screens showing the photos from a year in Phnom Penh as the result of the Photo Phnom Penh festival. But near the end of the park, close to the Independence Monument, I heard music. As I approached I spied rows of people dancing to the music. This was not aerobics mind you, this was… line dancing. It was a strange, and quite endearing sight.

So, there you have it, five reasons to consider Phnom Penh, whether for a long weekend or as part of a tour to Angkor.

Little did I know that the remains of typhoon Ketsana would trigger some of the worst floods Siem Reap has seen in years, just three weeks before I was scheduled to arrive. The first bit of ‘good’ is that things were getting back to normal by the time I got there. As we flew in, I could see out the plane window that huge swaths of the countryside were still inundated, but Siem Reap was dry. In the city, you could see signs everywhere of high water, and several roads were in bad shape, but otherwise it was business as usual.

I arrive too late in the day to visit the temples, so after checking in there’s plenty of time to have a look around the old market area, where most of the restaurants and pubs are located. There’s a bit of both the bad and the ugly here. The area is starting to take on some of the worst attributes of other Southeast Asian tourist destinations. It’s hard to take more than a few steps without being assaulted with shouts of “Hello, mah-saage”. In addition to these traditional massage services, there’s also a perplexing number of “fish massage” places, where you dip you feet into pools filled with many small fish. This has been a growing fad throughout Asia, but I’ve never seen so many outlets in one place. The fish also look much smaller than other places. Perhaps feet stinking from a day tromping around the ruins is not a good diet for them.

However, once you get past these minor annoyances, you will find some very good restaurants selling cuisines from just about every country at very reasonable prices. There are also some nice pubs where you can have a drink or two or three and catch up with friends.

Of course, the whole reason people visit Siem Reap is to see the ruins of the ancient Khmer capital around Angkor Wat temple. Here, not much has changed, although the crowds are less than one would usually expect at this time of year. Still, there are crowds, especially around the most popular and accessible sites, like the Terraces of the Elephants and the Leper King. However, it’s surprising how easy it is to get away from the crowds and have some places entirely to yourself. For example, facing the Terraces across the open field are a dozen towers, backed by two large buildings. Just a few paces north of these structures is another group of five structures called Preah Pithu. Although not as large as many of the temples around Angkor, this group is still quite impressive, and absolutely nobody visits them.

There are several places like Preah Pithu where you can escape the crowds. On this trip, I also explored Ta Keo and the Thammanon temples, both of which are rather interesting and little visited. Even the massive Preah Khan doesn’t get large groups of visitors. It’s such a huge labyrinth that big groups would end up with people missing in its maze. Neak Pean, for all its uniqueness, doesn’t seem to get that many visitors either.

Away from the archaeological park, there’s now a large new museum in Siem Reap town, on the main road leading to the park. The Angkor National Museum houses about eight galleries on two levels. The museum features many sculptures – mostly in stone – taken from the temples around Angkor. Many of the most important statues you see at the ruins are copies, with the originals on display at either the Angkor National Museum or the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

The first gallery of the museum is by far the most impressive. The gallery of “1,000 Buddha Images” is pretty much exactly what it says. The dark red-painted walls are lined with small niches from waist level to the high ceiling, and each niche displays a small Buddha image from somewhere around Angkor. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Wat Phanan Choeng in Ayutthaya, Thailand, except each of the niches is lighted. Larger images in various poses are displayed around the gallery. The rest of the galleries, visited in sequence, will take you through the early pre-history of the Khmers, through the early kingdoms and up to Angkor Wat, which gets a grand gallery of its own with an impressive sound and light show.

The museum has a rather nice shop, and there’s also a whole shopping mall attached to it. Unfortunately, the powers that be appear to have grossly misjudged the profile of people that visit Angkor. They may like to visit a market, but they don’t live to shop, like many Asian travelers. The mall doesn’t appear to have ever gotten off the ground, and it’s obvious that several shops have failed already.

Read the full AFP story at Breitbart.

While the dragons – giant lizards, technically – of Komodo are well known, their domain isn’t too over-run with tourists, in part because it isn’t the easiest place to get to. My trip started in Bali, with an early morning flight to Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. It’s a one-and-a-half hour flight aboard a small Fokker 50 plane. The flight via Riau Airlines was included in the cost of my cruise. There are two or three other airlines that fly this route, but all use small planes.

The flight arrived at the tiny Komodo Airport at Labuan Bajo, where we were met by Susanne, the co-owner of our boat, the Moana. It was a very short ride down the hill from the airport to the dock, where one of the Moana’s tenders met us to take us to the ship out in the harbor.

The Moana is only six years old, but it was built of wood in the tradition of the phinisi sailing ships that have worked these seas for hundreds of years. It can accommodate 14 passengers, but there were only 10 of us on this trip, tended to by 11 crew members. I was fortunate to get a double cabin all to myself. The cabin was quite comfortable – for one person – but cramped, as is always the case with most dive boats. Of course, you generally don’t spend much time in your cabin except to sleep on these trips, so as long as the bed is comfortable, which it was, it doesn’t matter much.

The main deck is where everyone spends most of their time, and although the Moana didn’t have an air-conditioned salon such as you find on some boats, I didn’t miss it at all. At the focal point of the main deck was a large table, where passengers ate, read, etc. and which had a glass center that served as a skylight to the gangway below. Forward of the table was an open area with deck chairs, while on the bow was a raised deck where cushions and huge pillows made for a great lounging area. There was always at least one crewman manning the ‘bar’ next to the dining table, so you could get a drink any time you wished.

We set sail as soon as everyone was on board, shortly after noon. We had a briefing on the boat from Susanne and an introduction for the divers from Engo,the dive master. After we got our cabins and dive gear arranged, lunch was served. The food on this trip was certainly worth mentioning. First off, lunch and dinner were served to us by the crew. All other dive cruises I’ve been on were buffet style. The food itself was great – perhaps not spectacular, but certainly a good cut above what I’ve ever had before. Most days, we even got fresh cooked afternoon snacks, like banana pancakes, rather than the tinned cookies most dive boats offer. Compared to other trips, this was practically fine dining.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the first anchorage, where us divers would have our "check out" dive. This is supposed to be an easy dive, where we can check that we’ve got all our equipment in good working order, have the right amount of weight, etc. There were only five divers on this trip. The other five passengers were non-divers who would snorkel while we were diving. The Moana can only really handle ten divers at most. I won’t go into detail about the dives here except to say that most of them were quite challenging, due to strong currents, but they were extremely rewarding, in terms of what you can see. The good news for you non-divers is that the snorkelers reported seeing a lot of the same things we divers did, including sea snakes, turtles and lion fish.

A black lionfish sits on a rock just below the surface.

After the first dive, the boat sailed on to moor for the night in the sheltered bay of a small island off the northeastern tip of Komodo island. Our routine for the next couple of days was similar to most dive boats: get up in the morning, have a light snack, dive, have breakfast, dive, have lunch, dive, have a snack, dive, have dinner, then bed. As the days progressed, we worked our way down along the east coast of Komodo towards Rinca.

By the afternoon of our last full day, we were anchored in a small bay of Rinca island. We all got into one of the tenders, which took us into the next deep bay, where one of the park stations was located. We were off to see dragons!

From the dock, we walked through a dry mangrove forest and across an open field. A couple of monkeys scampered across the tall grass. On the other side of the field was the ranger station, which includes a small, rustic guest-house. Susanne had told us that the main ranger station on Komodo was a real tourist trap, so this small station on Rinca was better. At the station, we were assigned a guide, who took us on a walk along a trail through the brush to find some dragons. Actually, we didn’t even get out of the compound before a juvenile dragon sauntered through the edge of the woods. It was only seven or eight years old, we were told. We continued on along the trail for just a few minutes when a baby dragon came down the trail right toward us. Even though it was only one or two years old, this little guy had absolutely no fear of us. He stopped a few times to regard us, but then just kept walking towards us, and only veered off the train to avoid us just as he was right on top of us.

An adult Komodo dragon saunters past.

Further on, the guide was showing us a nest site, when some crashing in the bush indicated that a large adult coming towards us. The big two-meter plus lizard came out of the bush and skirted the nest site, while we all gave it a wide berth. The dragon walked parallel to the path for a bit, then veered off and we carefully walked passed. As we move on down the trail, we come to a wild water buffalo wallowing in one of the few remaining small pools, which are drying up as the hot season sets in. He seems quite happy as long as we keep our distance.

The trail loops around and soon we’re back at the ranger station, where both the baby and the juvenile are still hanging around. A macaque sits near the juvenile, and doesn’t seem at all worried about the dragon, but he must know he’s a lot faster than the lizard. As we start out across the field to the pier, a deer stands up in the tall grass. Nobody saw him until he stood up. The buck trotted along and crossed the path in front of us. In the tall trees on our right, some monkeys seemed to be raising a ruckus, either upset about the deer or another dragon.

Sunset at Bat Island

Once we got back to the Moana, the ship set sail out of the bay and around the northern-most point of Rinca. We sailed around a large mangrove forest set in the large northern bay of Rinca and moored here for the night. The mangrove is known as ‘bat island’ because every night at sunset, thousands of large bats left their roost in the forest to fly to the mainland to feed. Soon we saw a few black shapes appearing out of the trees, and this formed into a steady stream of flying foxes that lasted almost an hour. It was a beautiful sunset, with some good music playing through the boat’s sound system, and everyone was very relaxed. The amazing thing was, we were the only boat there to watch this spectacle, although another small boat showed up just as darkness finally fell.

The next morning we sailed back to Labuan Bajo, where we caught our flight back to Bali.

Update: I’ve completed updating my guides for Komodo: The diving guide to Komodo can be found at SEAundersea.com; while you can find information about the dragons and general information on travel to Komodo at AsiaForVisitors.com. You may also wish to visit Moana Cruising for information about their trips through the park.

First up, a little shark action, just to get your attention.

There were less dangerous things about, like sea turtles for example:

All the action wasn’t under water. On our last night, we watched the bats migrate from their home in the mangroves to the larger islands to feed:

What, you were expecting pictures of dragons? Well, that’s the main attraction, and for that you’ll have to wait for the full post. Stay tuned!

My home for this trip was the Grand Millennium, right on Bukit Bintang Road in the middle of KL’s main shopping and entertainment district. It’s very nice, and like most every hotel in Kuala Lumpur, it’s amazing value for money. KL has some of the cheapest hotels in the region, which is reason enough to spend more time there. And, speaking of bargains, the shopping isn’t bad either. Bukit Bintang may not match the bulk of Orchard Road in Singapore or Bangkok’s Siam Square, but it certainly matches them for the breadth of products and prices – which to my mind are generally cheaper than either of the two more famous shopping areas.

Bukit Bintang does seem to be going through a period of reconstruction. This was probably spurred on by the opening of the KL Pavilion, a large new shopping center on the edge of the area. KL Plaza is almost completely closed for a major remodel, while Lot 10 next to it is also undergoing a number of changes.

As usual, I took the Express train back to the airport for my flight. The huge Sentral station is also undergoing some changes, with the commencement of Phase II construction. If you’ve ever wondered why the monorail didn’t go all the way to Sentral, it was to leave room for a shopping mall and office tower. It should be completed in 2012.