For as long as most people can remember, New Year’s Eve in Siem Reap has meant just one thing: the Pub Street party. Such is its notoriety that last year a group of 100 Singaporeans shunned the charms of their home town and chartered their own plane to transport them to Siem Reap’s festivities instead. … read the full post

No sooner had I ripped the November 30 page off my desk calendar than the Christmas trees were sprouting up and the decorations were invading the Siem Reap shops. Carol concerts have started and the party season is in full swing. In fact if you are one of those who goes on holiday every December … read the full post

If you are struggling to pinpoint a date for a trip to Siem Reap, this might just help. Saturday February 23, 2013 is the confirmed date for next year’s Giant Puppet Parade. The parade has become such a highlight of the Siem Reap social calendar that visitors in the know now deliberately plan their temple … read the full post

Further update: Now the latest reports we are hearing are that the festival is cancelled in Phnom Penh only. We’ll let you know definitively as soon as we know! Update: Xinhua reports that the Cambodian Water Festival for 2012 has been cancelled to mourn late former King Norodom Sihanouk who passed away last week. The … read the full post

I’ve never worked out whether Easter bunnies actually “lay” Easter eggs, or just hide them like fiends, and if it’s the latter then we really need to question the picture of doe-eyed innocence their PR agents have thus far been so successful in promoting. It seems odd I know, but I was unsure whether we … read the full post

Siem Reap’s first film festival, the Angkor Wat International Film Festival, will be held at the Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Hotel from February 17 to 19. If you haven’t quite made it to Cannes yet, for whatever reason, here’s your chance to practice swirling cocktails, or perhaps a can of Anchor beer, while making come hither … read the full post

Siem Reap is not Ko Pha Ngan. Having grown up around the incredible temples of Angkor, Siem Reap’s offerings are a little more profound than the prospect of getting deliriously trashed and waking up on the beach with a cute stranger and an ominous itch, so it’s no surprise that we won’t necessarily make it … read the full post

Yes, we know it’s 20-odd degrees Celsius and there’s not a drop of snow to be had, unless you count the interior of my neglected freezer. And we know that the odds of finding a fat man in an enormous red suit that hasn’t collapsed from heat stroke are somewhere around the snowflake in hell … read the full post

It is one of the core elements of Siem Reap’s emerging artistic scene, a sign of its confidence and capacity to host important events, and an investment in the future of Cambodia’s artists. Now in its seventh year, the Angkor Photo Festival is the first international photo festival in Southeast Asia and launches at 20:30 … read the full post

In view of recent events, the government has just taken the probably very sensible decision to cancel this year’s Water Festival which was due to kick off on November 9. The Water Festival is one of the highlights of the Cambodian calendar, a spectacle that is enormously looked forward to by Cambodians and is a … read the full post