Around Cambodia with Digital Citizens · Global Voices
Tharum Bun

A blackout in the United States in 2003 made history and news headline, but not at all in Cambodia. In Stung Treng, while composing an email in a community Internet center, a development worker could not finish because the generator-powered computer was running out of gas.
In Krong Keb, Cambodia’s forgotten beach, as written in the guidebook, ZJ another foreign development worker, is experienced with staying at a guesthouse where there is no electricity supply. “I didn't want to go to Krong Kep… again. My first time there proved to be, well, a disaster of sorts. There were few guesthouses, and unfortunately, where we stayed there was no electricity and the bed was infested with dust mites so badly that when I went back to Phnom Penh I had skin allergies,” she admitted.
Back to Phnom Penh, the capital city of the country, an expat Steve Goodman who has currently launched another photoblog, complained about the unreliable electricity and had to cook with gas. Elsewhere in the city, the power was cut off while a Cambodia-based weblogger was blogging one evening. “As I'm typing the above near the waterfront, about 6:30 PM, there's a sudden power cut. Quite a few of these in the last few weeks,” he wrote.  Power shortages also angered an Englishman who exaggerated that “at home, I do not even have any candles left!”
After two decades of war, Cambodia is becoming a top tourism destination. ‘Wonders of Cambodia – The top 7 things to see and do in Cambodia‘, a weblog post of Khmer440, described 7 greatest places to visit in the country, from Angkor Wat to The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, to beautiful Sihanoukville beach, Preah Vihear province,  Battambang town, and to Rattankiri province. Keeping an online journal to share the traveloque with friends and family means a lot to travelers and the rest of the world. Since 2003 Stefan writes about his travel in towns, resorts, and rural areas. Not only expatriates, but a group of young people established a weblog under the name ‘Youth Vision’ and shared their amazing experience of wine drinking that traditionally produced by minor ethnic in Modol Kiri Province, a rural area of the country.
Is all the visiting to Cambodia giving you headache?
For a Taiwanese citizen who planned to visit Cambodia, paperwork and process of obtaining a tourist visa to the country gave him a first impression about the country visa red tape. At the Cambodian embassy in Singapore, his resident country, another $5 extra fee asked from a visa officer for express service. In response to this, a Bulletin of Singapore Bloggers, Tomorrow, popagandhi wrote that “actually the extra US$5 is more of a rule rather than the exception. except when you land at the phnom penh or siem reap airport on an international flight. happens at the land borders too. to go to countries like these you just have to be prepared to take whatever is thrown your way.”
Although he was confronted by the officer, he hopes to visit Cambodia in a positive manner.
Travel around Asia
As part of Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program 2005 (SSEAYP), a Cambodian lecturer Somongkol Teng, proudly represents Cambodian youth, to join other young people from ASEAN nations to travel to 6 countries. This Japan-sponsored youth program, with 11 countries from ASEAN and Japan participating, is scheduled to travel to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Philippines and Japan via cruise ship. On his weblog, a chronicle of photo ongoing photographs chronicle the group's journey.