One of the things that I love about Cambodia is that there are options for responsible tourism. When I arrived in Phnom Penh and I asked other travelers for recommendations of where to visit every person gave the same answer: Phnom Penh, Shianookville, Siem Reap. These places are worth visiting, but there is so much more to Cambodia than many see on their week long trip through on the way from Thailand to Vietnam. Siem Reap is visited for Angkor Wat, this temple complex is beautiful although the experience is somewhat marred by the tourists constant camera clicking and the microphoned voices of tour guides. Shianokville is a place to party and not much else, its the kind of place where the hostels feel the need to put signs in the dormitories stating 'no prostitutes.' The quieter Otres beach is much more relaxed and you won't be hassled while lying on the beach. I found Phnomh Penh a nice, modern, relatively clean city, others didn't agree however, particularly with the latter. I had just flown from Kolkata and I think almost anywhere in the world would seem clean in comparison. Phnom Penh has Daughters, a social enterprise created to provide alternative employment for women working in the sex trade. Daughters provides training for things such as sewing and the small gifts and homeware items created are sold on the shops bottom floor. On the middle floor is a film room showing a documentary about the story of Daughters and the top is a lovely cafe. I visited The killing fields and the genocide museum, this was, of course, so important to see, it gave me more of an understanding and appreciation for the country, it's history and people. Out of these main destinations there are some great places which are the reason that I love Cambodia. In the South West is an Eco tourism initiative in a rural village called Chi Phat, to get there you take a bus close to the Thai border and then take a 2 hour boat or a 30 minute motorbike taxi up a very muddy, bumpy path and then a quick 'ferry' which is more like a raft. Chi Phat was a village where many made or supplemented their living off poaching in the surrounding forest. The initiative gave the villagers an alternative income in the form of eco tourism, all of the profit from which is shared amongst the community. This is not glamorised eco tourism like glamping or luxury eco retreats. Accommodation is in the form of home stays, the houses are traditional and stilted, with outdoor toilets, bucket showers and a variety of animals roaming the yard. The tourist office doubles as a restaurant, which has no menu and serves communal meals, here you can organise tours and find out about activities that you can do independently. Krati is a small town with not a lot to do other than it's main draw, dolphins, specifically Freshwater Irrawady River Dolphins. They are critically endangered and there are only round 80 left in the world. The WWF has set up a project here to change the method of fishing to one that won't harm the dolphins. They have done this by giving training of alternative fishing methods and by providing alternative employment in the form of tourism, many past fishers now take tourists on small boats to catch a glimpse of these rare dolphins, we were lucky enough to see some. The North East of Cambodia is home to many elephants and many projects trying to protect them from activities such as elephant rides. Mondulkiri has a lot of projects like this, the most famous being the WWF Elephant Sanctuary, this can get fully booked up to a month in advance and we weren't organised for this so we spent time researching other projects to ensure they were also ethical. We settled on The Community Elephant Project, this is not an elephant sanctuary, the project works with mahouts to change the treatment of the animals and show them that they can still make money without elephant rides and without having to give their elephant away to a sanctuary, as for some this is a family member who has been with their family for decades. The mahouts let the elephants roam the forest and when the tourists come they search the forest for them, unless the elephant finds the banana carrying tourists first, as in our case. The elephants can stay with the tourists as long as they want and when they're ready to leave they can do so freely. They are found again in the afternoon for their bath which we were allowed to help with. We were also walked around the village and taught about the surrounding plants and local culture. Kampot is in the south and is a small town with a relaxed atmosphere. Most visit to see Bokor Mountain, a national park unusual for it's casino at the top. But my favourite places in Kampot were the water front and Epic Arts Café. The promenade along the river is a lovely place to watch the sunset over Bokor mountain while teenagers dive off the bridge into the river and the boats come back in from a days fishing. Epic Arts Café is a charity supporting and educating the disabled. The café is staffed by deaf and disabled people and orders are placed on cards while the menu teaches basic sign language. The food at this café is amazing and makes a nice change from amok, with salads, sandwiches and cakes the quality of which is not always easily found when travelling in Asia. The charity also have a shop where they sell small items created by disabled students, such as notebooks, totes, t-shirts and art prints. Kampot has a similar feel to Battambang which is also artsy with a relaxed atmosphere, Battambang is located close to Siem Reap so is more convenient. It is home to the Battambang Circus which is a visual and performing arts school for street children. The circus show is funny and very impressive, it's well worth seeing. From what I experienced Cambodia's responsible tourism industry is picking up as are it's social enterprises, which makes it such an interesting place to visit, with many different aspects to it in addition to it's undeniably amazing temples.
