Between Thailand and Vietnam-tourists tend to ignore that there is an entire country to be discovered beyond the decaying temples. If you’ve never been to Cambodia before, it can be overwhelming to take it all in at once. We’ve put together a guide for you to make things easier.

Arrival at Cambodia

Most visitors arrive in Cambodia via Siem Reap International Airport, which is three miles from Angkor Wat and roughly five miles from the city of Siem Reap. You can take minibuses, buses, or domestic flights from Siem Reap to other country regions, such as Phnom Penh, Battambang, Kampot, and Sihanoukville.

To travel to Cambodia, tourists require a visa. Check the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism website for the latest information on policies before making travel arrangements.

Things to do in Cambodia

If you’re thinking about a holiday to Cambodia, we have two recommendations for you:

Siem Reap

Siem Reap, a tiny village about five kilometres south of Angkor Wat, has grown into the fastest-growing settlement in Cambodia. When it comes to tourist attractions, Siem Reap is all about delicious cuisine, traditional cottages, and a number of fun activities that won’t ruin your holiday.

Tonle Sap

Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, grows from 1,000 square miles to 6,200 square miles during the rainy season, from June to October. Over 300 species of freshwater fish breed in the flooded forests, and the lake supplies half of Cambodia’s entire fish catch. A short drive north of Siem Reap, Tonle Sap is known for its floating villages, where entire populations depend on the lake for their survival.

Where to stay

As Cambodia’s most popular gateway city for tourists, Siem Reap has a wide variety of accommodation options, from hostels to five-star hotels. Booking in advance is especially important if you plan to travel during the peak season of December and February.

Best time to visit

Visit Cambodia in the dry season, which lasts from the end of November to the beginning of April. The Angkor temples are far more pleasant to visit during the dry season when the weather is cooler.

“We didn’t intend to be farmers,” Bob Paton says. In their 50s, he and his wife, Ann, envisioned “one more move”. They lived in Newcastle upon Tyne and had a checklist for their dream house: “Northumberland, stone-built, a bit of character and a reasonable garden,” Bob says.

The place they found ticked every box but one. Instead of a reasonable garden, it had six acres. As they walked the grounds, Bob turned to Ann and decided they could turn this into a small farm. Eleven days before his 60th birthday, he retired as a managing director with the IT company Accenture. Ann, 63, had already sold her grocery. Together they began to farm.

The next two years were a struggle. The four fields were badly fenced and waterlogged. The soil was poor. Growing vegetables was not a common thing to do in this cold, wet and windy area of Northumberland. They dug up thousands of stones, which was backbreaking, but they were never going to give up. As the son of a coal miner, Bob grew up in Ashington, 15 miles north of Newcastle and helped his father on his allotment (小块菜园). “Sunday lunches in mining communities were big things. My dad used to dig up potatoes. They melted in your mouth — the freshness! The memory stayed with me. But I think it was the sense of trying to achieve something.” Bob recalled.

Now one field is home to a two-acre orchard. Two others house polytunnels, herbs and 50 varieties of vegetable. The fourth belongs to their Tamworth pigs. As Hexhamshire Organics, they sell 100 organic vegetable boxes a week, and supply Northumberland’s only Michelin-starred restaurant. “I used to say I retired, but now I say I had a career change,” Bob says. They have never worked so hard. “It’s usually the light that stops us,” Ann mentions. She brings a career in catering and retail to bear on the business, while Bob is the planner. Plan tomorrow today. Plan next week this week. Plan next month this month. His spreadsheet logs “every single vegetable”, from sowing to harvest, and calculates output to the square foot.

In the children’s story Alice in Wonderland, a character known simply as the Dormouse (睡鼠) keeps napping during the Mad Hatter’s tea party, waking occasionally to utter a nonsensical remark. This species, the largest at six inched long, can sleep for more than 11 months of the year; that makes it the longest known hibernator (冬眠动物) on Earth.

However, dormice prefer to sleep in the holes of old trees and centuries of timber harvesting (森林伐木) has highly endangered this kind of animals which play an important role in ecological balance.

So Neris Regional Park’s dormouse nest box and conservation program began in 2005 as part of a sustainable forestry certification with the Forest Stewardship Council, based in Bonn, Germany. So far, park staff has installed 250 nest boxes throughout the park’s thick, old-growth oak forests. A dormouse nest box resembles a standard birdhouse spun around backward and tied to a tree trunk. There’s enough space between the trunk and the entrance hole for dormice to squeeze in and out of their artificial nest, but so little that it’s difficult for predators such as owls to attack. Best of all, nest boxes bring the otherwise mysterious creatures within reach for scientists.

Dormice usually spend around seven months out of the year sleeping in underground holes and venture (冒险) from their holes for a few hours each night to eat. This means opportunities to observe the animals are basically nonexistent. But by placing cameras in nest boxes or just peeking inside, researchers can check in on the animals whenever they want.

In addition to monitoring nest boxes, scientists are seeking out and protecting individual tees that can provide habitat for dormice, which will actually benefit a broad range of other species.