BEWARE!!!!
ALSO, PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PRICES, DIRECTIONS, OR BASICALLY ANY OF THE SPARSE INFORMATION IN ANY GUIDEBOOK. THE ONLY RELIABLE INFORMATION IS IN THIS BLOG.
An alternative to traditional tourism!!! Rana is NOT a guest house. It is a learning experience about rural life in Cambodia more than a business. Talk with Pol Pot survivors and learn about contemporary life while relaxing in a traditional cottage or private room in our house. Our home organic cooked meals come straight from the garden. Walking tours with plenty of photographic possibilities and contact with the locals. Families are especially welcome.
AND REMEMBER IF YOU ARE IN CAMBODIA ALREADY OR IN THE PROCESS OF CROSSING THE BORDER DO NOT EMAIL US!!! CALL US AT 012 68 62 40! WE DON'T HAVE ELECTRICITY OR LAND LINES HERE. WHEN WE NEED TO USE A COMPUTER WE GO TO KAMPONG CHAM AND SINCE WE'RE VERY BUSY WITH OUR FARMING CHORES WE GET TO TOWN ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK. IF YOU WANT TO TO BOTTOM LINE THE COSTS SCROLL DOWN TO http://rana-cambodia.blogspot.com/2008/08/contact-infoprices.html AND READ THE BLUE INK.
WE'VE ALSO FOUND A TALENTED MASSEUSE IN OUR VILLAGE, AN OLD AUNTIE-PARTIALLY CRIPPLED, WHO IS A POL POT SURVIVOR. WE'RE NEGOTIATING PRICES WITH HER NOW. OUR LAST GUEST PAID HER $10/HOUR WHICH I FIND A LITTLE STEEP FOR OUR VILLAGE. THE LADY IS NOT GREEDY BUT OUR GUEST WAS VERY GENEROUS. LAST YEAR I HAD GREAT LUCK WITH MY SEED REQUESTS. THEY ARE NOW GROWING IN SCATTERED PLOTS AROUND MY LAND. I WOULD LIKE SOME MORE SEEDS IF POSSIBLE, NOT A LOT, JUST ENOUGH THAT I CAN GROW FOR SEED AND PASS ON TO MY NEIGHBORS. WHAT I'M PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR COMES FROM AUSTRALIA. I REALLY WANT PASSION FRUIT SEEDS. MY WIFE SAYS THEY USED TO BE ABUNDANT IN THE JUNGLE, BUT THAT THEY HAVE TOTALLY DISAPPEARED. IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO RE-INTRODUCE THEM OR AT LEAST VARIETALS. TAMARIND, PECAN AND ESPECIALLY LEMON SEEDS WOULD ALSO BE NICE. IF YOU'RE COMING HERE FROM AUSTRALIA AND WANT TO BE OF HELP TO THIS SMALL COMMUNITY WE WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR CONTRIBUTION. PLEASE REMEMBER THE SEEDS MUST BE ORGANIC SO THAT I CAN PASS THEM ON TO MY NEIGHBORS. .
WE ARE COMPLETELY OPEN ON 25-31. DO NOT EMAIL IF YOU ARE IN CAMBODIA, CALL 012 68 62 40. I'LL BE UNABLE TO GET TO MY EMAILS IN THE MONTH OF MARCH OR ONLY SPORADICALLY AT BEST. EFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY (EXCEPT FOR PREVIOUS RESERVATIO
NS) WE WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT ONE DAY STAYS!!!! The reasons for this are varied, but as I explained in an email to a recent query about a one-day stay as follows: " Most of the people who write enthousiastically about us are people who stay for two days, not one. We are more than a source of excellant food; we offer a wealth of information about rural life in Cambodia. There is the consideration of time.
For those who want to get to the nitty-gritty bottom line details just skip this nostalgic column for the time being and read the next two entries. For recent photos go to the following URL:http://www.travelpod.com/travelblogphotoalbums/fishtails04/the_big_job/1200999180/0/12/YES/tpod.html
WE HAVE ALSO STARTED AN ENGLISH SCHOOL FOR VILLAGERS. I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON A BLOG SITE AND WILL FURNISH THE URL WHEN I HAVE IT. IN FACT I'LL GIVE IT TO YOUNOW; IT "LL BE AN IMPETUS FOR ME TO FINISH IT. IT IS:http://rana-engschool.blogspot.com/WE ARE SOLICITING FUNDS FOR A NEW BUILDING BUILDING WITH A TOTAL COST OF AROUND TWO TO THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. THIS INCLUDES THE BUILDING, FURNISHINGS, SUPPLIES, AND TEACHING AIDS.


"have posted several questions so thought it was time i returned the favour and gave some advice! just spent a month in cambodia and heading northeast from phnompenh was def when it started to get most interesting. recommendations:KOMPONG CHAM - stayed with a family at excellent village homestay: authentic experience not artificial tourist one, basic but comfy, saw real day to day life, ate amazing food, got to talk with pol pot survivors, walked and cycled through village with hosts. highly recommended as a unique and fascinating look at 'real life', rarely on show to tourists. one of highlights of my trip, (can't remember web adress but google rana-cambodia and you'll get it)""I am staying two nights with Don and his lovely Cambodian wife Kreagh on a small village outside Kampog Cham. This is one of those impromptu and completely unplanned detours. Part of an effort to find inspiration and experience new things. Ii found out about this homestay on a little faded poster photocopy at my guesthouse in Kratie. It intrigued me. It claimed to be an authentic glimpse at rural life in Cambodia as well as an opportunity to talk to survivors of the country’s turbulent and disturbing history. It is all that. Even disturbingly so. It is not a picture perfect postcard of a little hut in a village, glossed over and beautified by organised tourism. It’s staying at a family’s house. A family that lives next to the highway, that is the product of a mixed marriage with all the difficulty and challenge that represents, a family that does not have a lot of means but has a common project. To share the reality of their lives with the outside world. When I first got here, I was the only guest. I must admit that I panicked. I could not imagine how I would spend the two days I allotted to this place. I felt a bit awkward, an intruder. Then a lovely other couple arrived. Nicole and Benoit. She is South African and he is French and they look great together. At least the pressure was off me. It takes time to feel at home, to get into another person’s life. But Don is a good American. One of those that talks enough to put you at your ease. That answers and encourages questions. That honestly shares the reality of his life. And Kreagh is just beautiful, a sparkling reed of energy. She speaks exceptional English in a voice as clear as a bell rolling the “r”s as in her native language. Her eyes that light up when she smiles and eveb more when she discusses her experience during the Pol Pot years. She was only a child then, when she was sent to forced labour. Now she can laugh about the heavy stones she had to carry every day to build a damn that was never of any use. She laughs at the porridge they got to eat twice a day and at the fact that they added any sort of leaf they could find to make it more palatable. She remembers how she got punished for trying to steal food by being made to work at night and being scared by the sounds of the wolves howling. She also remembers the friend that stuck with her and how they always tried to help each other. All this we find out in a session that Don organises. Somethingg like an informal chat with Kreagh and her mother. Kreagh acts as interpreter and we get to ask her mother questions, about anything. What was the worse things you experienced during the Khmer Rouge years. Being apart from my family she says. Can you remember anything that was good during that time, anything that gave you hope? No she says, there was nothing. The next day, we learn some more of the bleak reality of life in rural Cambodia by talking to Kreagh’s sister who is a school teacher. She remembers with excitement the time she was sent to Vietnam as part of a delegation to observe a model school. It was exciting and fun to be treated like a special foreign dignitary but there is nothing she saw there that she could apply. That school had computers and spotless classrooms. She has 56 children from 10-14 years old in her class and no parent really wants them there. Teachers get paid a pittance and children get an education they never see the value of. They will never get out of a farmer’s life and anyway there is nothing to read. It is a sad country, a hopeless place. NGOs do they help or do they make the matters worse? They do not empower people. They make then feel like they do nothing on their own and they make the fact cats fatter. What is the solution then? As always, grassroots action. Pick a cause and help at the micro level, one person at a time. For those interested to see more about Dom's homestay http://rana-cambodia.blogspot.com"
Rana Country HomestayPosted by senorlimpio 15 April 2007
The most rewarding day of our entire trip to Cambodia. The delightful and informative owner Kheang takes you on tours of the village and farmlands (where she grew up before working for an NGO in Phnom Penh for 10 years), inbetween making delicious homecooked Cambodia meals (best Amok anywhere!). In the evening people from the village come to talk to you about whatever you want. 80% of Cambodia’s population are still subsistence farmers, and this place is unique in giving an insider insight into the realities of peasant life. We found it particularly insightful to have this perspective on the Pol Pot years – especially as most information on these comes from previously wealthy city dwellers dispossessed by the Khmer Rouge or the horrors of Toul Sleng and the killing fields. Be warned, this is not a luxury establishment. You’ll sleep in a (very clean) Khmer wooden stilt hut, wash in the family’s bathroom, and have to do without electricity – the government have only put it in on the other side of the road! That said, strongly recommend you take the short detour required off the road from Phnom Penh - Siem Reap to take this in.