I was sitting in my kitchen the other night in Cambodia, staring at my bathroom door, and it occurred to me: the bathroom, of course, has a three-inch threshold. You have to step over that to get in. This detail of architecture is so ubiquitous I never stopped to think […]
Happy Khmer New Year! Pursat Songkran 2025
The following describes the adventurous journey to see the fireworks on Pursat City’s Golden Ship Island on April 15th, the second day of Khmer New Year, 2025. We brave the streets during the height of songkran, several days of public free-for-all water fights, where baby powder is included in the […]
Adventures in Cambodia: Van Transport
I stood outside my one-room apartment. It was nearly 4 AM. I had padlocked my front door and gone outside the gate with my one suitcase and a plastic basket for my cat. Said cat was on my shoulder, because I had already discovered that he hated the basket and […]
Pursat, Cambodia: On the River
When I was a child, we lived in the province of Pursat (Po-sat), in the city of Pursat, which straddles the Pursat river. The brown water flowed along, low in the dry season and running over into the streets in the rainy season. Men would pile white sacks of sand […]