Geography
Cambodia is a monarchical state located in Southeast Asia in the southern part of the Indochina peninsula. See Cambodia abbreviations.
In the west and northwest, the kingdom borders on Thailand, the length of the border is 800 kilometers. In the east and southeast it borders with Vietnam for 1228 kilometers. On the northern side of Cambodia, the Republic of Laos surrounds for 541 kilometers. From the south and southwest side, the country is washed by the Gulf of Thailand.
The largest river of the Kingdom of Cambodia is the Mekong River, which divides the country almost in half from north to south. The main part of the territory is located in the basin of this river.
Cambodia mostly consists of flat terrain, only in the southern part of the country are the Kordamon and Elephant mountains, which are the dividing strip between Cambodia and the Gulf of Thailand.
The highest point of these mountains is Mount Pnomaural, whose height is 1813 meters. A distinctive feature of the country’s relief is that the entire plain of Cambodia is surrounded by “pnomami” hills, which reach 600-800 meters.
Approximately three quarters of the country is covered with forests. The most common trees are banana tree, coconut palm, rubber ficus.
Cambodia covers 181,000 square kilometers with a population of about 13 million people.
Climate
According to 800zipcodes, the climate of Cambodia is tropical, with distinct seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. Such a clear division of the seasons is due to the monsoons, which change their direction twice a year. The average annual temperature is +27°C.
The period from November to May is considered the dry season, where the lowest temperature is +22 °C (approximately January) and the highest from +32 °C to +35 °C (March, April).
Accordingly, from May to October is the rainy season. This period is characterized by heavy rains that can last from 2 hours to several days. But the air temperature remains average from about +23 °C to +30 °C, losing only 2-3 °C due to the evaporation process.
Annually in Cambodia falls from 700 to 3000 millimeters of precipitation. In the flat part of the country, precipitation is much less than in the mountains. In the mountainous part of the area, precipitation per year can reach 3000 – 4000 millimeters.
Major cities and resorts: Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Siam Reap, Angkor
Cuisine of Cambodia
Cambodian cuisine has both original, original features and traditions borrowed from other culinary traditions. So, the influence of French cuisine is quite strong. A feature of local food is the use of almost anything as food, from insects to plants. Therefore, some dishes may seem strange and too exotic to a tourist.
The basis of most Cambodian dishes is rice cooked as a side dish or an independent dish. Fish and meat are also used, with a significant predominance of fish, and in the southern regions – different types of seafood. Vegetables and fruits are widely used, some of the names of which will seem completely unfamiliar to tourists. They are pickled and fermented, combining ripe fruits with not fully ripe ones, which gives them a special taste.
Unlike, for example, Thai or Vietnamese cuisine, Cambodian cuisine uses significantly fewer spices. The emphasis in cooking is on vegetable oils: nut, peanut, coconut, palm, etc., as well as fresh herbs. In addition to rice, dishes often include noodles and pasta, as well as different types of cereals: rice, yams, millet, taro, corn, etc.
A frequent dish prepared by local chefs is soup in various forms. Almost every day at breakfast, Cambodians eat kitevu soup, which is made from noodles, herbs, meat, fish or seafood. It is prepared in dozens of variations, depending on the ingredients that are on hand. Chefs can make samla-machu-banle soup or sour fish dtrai-chin-nyung soup, or use snails, frog legs, or even eggs as a base.
Vegetable salads with the addition of meat and fish can also be called a frequent dish. Salad is always dressed with some kind of sauce. Sometimes fruits are involved.
A daily Cambodian dish is baicha rice, fried with various herbs, meat, fish or seafood, herbs and sauces, as well as un -som-chro rice with soy and pork and rice with un-som-bananas. che”. Baked fish with rice garnish “nom-trai”, curry “amok” from the same fish, poured with coconut sauce, as well as steamed fish “dtrai-chorm-hoi” and fried fish “dtrai-aing” are no less popular.
The fish is also stuffed, dried, smoked and boiled (mostly freshwater). You can enjoy rice with prahok fish paste and fish wrapped in lettuce or spinach and baked with them. Excellent sauces “nyokmam” and “tukchey” and delicious pastas “ngapi”, “nampla”, “padek”, “mam-ka”, etc. are made from fish.
For the most intrepid tourists, Cambodian restaurants can offer a-ping spiders fried with salt and garlic, fried grasshoppers and beetles, raw snake meat and snake intestines, as well as insect larvae and bird embryos. There are even dishes such as dried cuttlefish and fried sparrows and other small birds. Prepared and bamboo, and water lilies, and various shellfish.
Under the French influence in Cambodia they learned how to bake very tasty buns and bread. For dessert, you need to taste assorted fruits, among which there are not only familiar names such as watermelons, bananas, pineapples and mangoes, but also such as durian, guava, pomelo, rambutan, sapodilla, mangosteen and so on. Fruit pudding, ansam-chruk cakes, norn-by and nom kom pies, felai cookies or one of the types of pies and ice cream can also be served on the table.
Among the branded local non-alcoholic drinks, one can distinguish “samrong”, infused from the seeds of a tree of the same name, sugarcane juice and palm tree ” tektnot”, or coconut milk. An interesting local drink “dtyuk-rolok”, which is prepared from fruits and egg yolk. You can drink plain fruit juice or soda with lemon, as well as green tea. Local coffee leaves much to be desired.
Local beer, although unusual in taste, is inexpensive and quite high quality. The best varieties are “Lao”, “Angkor” and “Alain Delon”, as well as foreign ” Tiger” and “Heineken”. There is again a rather peculiar local whiskey. There will be no problems with the purchase of imported alcohol.
