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Just received our first mention in a Dutch travelblog. The address is:http://klaasenesther.waarbenjij.nu/ and the text is as follows:Phnom Penh en Rana Homestay
"Vanuit Battambang trokken we per bus verder naar de hoofdstad Phnom Penh, een mooie reis door het platteland die nog werd opgeluisterd met prachtige karaoke in de bus, met als hoogtepunt de Cambodjaanse cover van Zachtjes tikt de regen tegen 't zolderraam. Dat was dus dubbel genieten.In Phnom Penh gingen we direct door naar de ambassade van Laos om nog voor het weekend onze visa te regelen. Maar bureaucratie op z'n hoogtepunt; Op donderdag aanvragen is tot maandag eind van de middag wachten op een stikker in je paspoort. We hadden dus alle tijd om Phnom Penh te verkennen. Vooral de gevangenis S21, voor de trouwe nieuws volgers vast bekend inmiddels nu het proces afgelopen week van start ging tegen de voormalig gevangenis leider, Duch, was erg indrukwekkend. Ook ons bezoek aan een van de vele Killing Fields was zeer de moeite waard, omdat je dan pas echt een beetje begint te begrijpen hoe ellendig de Pol Pot tijd moet zijn geweest.Na Phnom Penh trokken we verder in noordoostelijke richting naar de omgeving van het stadje Kompong Cham, aan de Mekong rivier. Daar verbleven we twee dagen en nachten bij mensen thuis op het platteland. Dit was een hele bijzondere ervaring. Tijdens ons verblijf maakten we met de Cambodjaanse eigenaresse een wandeling over het platteland en ook nog een fietstocht door kleine boerendorpjes in de omgeving. We hadden de mogelijkheid om met vele mensen in de omgeving te praten over hun werk en leven, dankzij het geweldige tolk werk van onze gids. Zij kende veel mensen en beide avonden kwam er ook iemand op de homestay langs met wie wij konden praten. De eerste avond was dat de moeder van onze gastvrouw, die ons veel kon vertellen over de tijd van het Pol Pot regime. De tweede avond was het een lerares, die ons informeerde over het Cambodjaanse school systeem. Erg leuk en leerzaam allemaal. Daarnaast heeft onze gastvrouw ons kennis laten maken met de Cambodjaanse keuken en mochten we zelf ook nog meehelpen bij het bereiden van een overheerlijke curry. Het eten was van een kwaliteit die een Michelin ster niet zou misstaan. Kortom helemaal top!Nu zijn we aangeland aan de grens met Laos, waar we morgen de volgens de geruchten door corruptie geteisterde oversteek gaan maken. Het zal wel een paar dollars gaan kosten, maar we zouden onszelf niet zijn als we daar niet eerst keihard over onderhandeld hebben."
I should mention that the bulk of our guests come from Holland, having recently overtaken the number of Australian visitors.
Here's the latest from fishtails, a travel writer on an expense accout...morning and the sun had risen to just above the line of the banana trees with their heavy, flopping leaves: just high enough for its rays to fall through the open shutters of my cosy thatched hut and caress my shoulder... a wonderfully gentle wake up call. I lay luxuriating in the warmth as it slowly crept down my body, listening to the birdsong and the cocks crowing... and gradually the sound of traffic and then children crying... hmmm, not quite paradise! But that was the beauty of the homestay I was based at for two days: reality, warts and all, in a rare opportunity to experience the life of a rural Cambodian family. This was neither a backpacker guest house nor an artificially preserved 'traditional' home for tourists, this was the genuine article: a farming family in a small village, welcoming visitors into their home to learn about Cambodian life
My hosts were Kheang, a local woman, her American husband, Don, and their two young children, Ra and Na. My room was the guest hut in their garden. My meals were the normal family fare (which just happened to be the best food I had eaten in three weeks in this country.) My day time activities were sitting chatting to the family about anything and everything; walking with Kheang and the kids through the local rice fields, seeing what a struggle it is to save the crop from rats; cycling through the village with Kheang, stopping en-route to watch local life among her neighbours: men shinning up palm trees with bamboo containers to collect palm
sugar juice, women boiling and stirring the juice to make candy-like blocks, kids turning the leftover fruit shells into toys, a young couple with polio-related disabilities stitching away to create silk purses to sell for a living. My evening entertainment was the highlight: Kheang's mother talked about her life in the village, with first-hand accounts of the suffering under Pol Pot, and answered anything I asked. I had told Don I was uncomfortable asking about what I perceived to be a sensitive subject, not wishing to scratch wounds, and his answer was that they were no longer wounds but scar tissue. That made sense to me, somehow, and I asked away, learning more than I could attempt to detail here. The next evening Kheang's sister, a teacher, joined us and answered my questions about the education system and how she copes with the fifty seven kids in her class with minimal resources. I also had interesting discussions with Don and Kheang about the difficulties ahead of them in the raising of their kids, with the inevitable clash of Western and Cambodian values. http://flickr.com/photos/eurosatemydollars/sets/72157604704928650/Dienstag 29. Januar 2008 Zwischen Kratie und Kampong Cham: Country home stay
In Kampong Cham sassen wir in einem Restaurant und fanden zufaellig in der Speisekarte einen Flyer, in dem wir gefragt wurden, ob wir Lust haetten, das Landleben in einem kleinen Dorf, ca. sieben KM entfernt, bei einem kambodschanisch-amerikanischen Ehepaar mit zwei Kindern zu erleben. Hatten wir und so riefen wir an und waren am naechsten Tag da. Wir haben es nicht bereut, im Gegenteil, wir koennen es nur waermstens empfehlen. Don hat nicht nur viel zu erzaehlen, interessant und witzig zugleich, er spricht auch noch hervorragend deutsch, da er in der Achtzigern in Deutschland gelebt hat. Er und seine Frau Kheang versuchen die Familie mit privaten Englischstunden zu ernaehren. Im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, denn bezahlt wird meistens in Naturalien. Wer wissen moechte, wie es um Kambodscha bestellt ist, wer sehen will, wie die Menschen leben, oftmals auch nur ueberleben, wer bei einer Reisernte dabei sein will, vielleicht sogar die Sichel mal selbst in die Hand nehmen, um nach zehn Minuten wieder aufzugeben, weil es zu anstrengend ist, wer abends die Moeglichkeit haben moechte, Menschen aus dem Ort kennen zu lernen, die die Roten Khmer ueberlebt haben, wer Fragen zu Kambodscha hat, aber keine Moeglichkeit sieht, sie zu stellen, der ist hier genau richtig.Dazu kommt auch noch, dass die Verpflegung ausgezeichnet ist. Wir haben in fuenf Wochen Kambodscha nirgendwo so lecker gegessen wie hier und auch noch sehr viel uebers Essen gelernt.Wenn ich von Kambodscha erzaehle, dann stehen Kheang, Don und ihre beiden Kinder Ra und Na immer an erster Stelle. Ohne sie wuerde mir ein grosser Teil dessen, was ich ueber Kambodscha erfahren habe, fehlen.
Von: Anonym
Updates > Asien > Kambodscha > Kompong Cham
Here's the latest I found in the magazine Lifestyle and Travel by Philip RowellJo and Stu wrote the following in travelfish.org "
Posts: 6
#8 Posted: 28/2/2008 - 14:26I would just like to add that my boyfriend and I spent two nights here in February 08 and had a great time. We have been travelling the world for 11 months now and have stayed at home stays throughout South America and Asia and I have to say that Rana home stay was the best. We learnt so much information about the culture of rural Cambodia and the Pol Pot regime. We were able to speak to survivors of the Pol Pot regime and ask them any questions that we wanted. I was able to interact with the people of the village and I gained knowledge of their daily life. The food is excellent and traditional, the best Amok in Cambodia! Kheang is a brilliant guide and so friendly. I miss their children Ra and Na and I would love to come back to visit. I would recommend this to anyone. Jo, from England". Thanks for emailing the great pics, guys.And here's one I just found in a blogsite at :http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/Kampong-Cham/blog-235362.html#comments 
"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)"Montag 10. Dezember 2007 Kompong Cham
TIPP: Wer das etwas andere Guesthouse erleben will, dem empfehlen wir einen Besuch bei Don und Kheang. Wir haben in zwei unvergesslichen Tagen authentisches kambodschanisches Leben kennen gelernt, mit schönen Wanderungen, Teilnahme am Familienleben und Erlebnisberichten von Überlebenden der sehr aufgewühlten Geschichte Kambodschas. Ganz nebenbei durften wir die beste Landesküche genießen und sehr nette Menschen kennen lernen.
(rana-cambodia.blogspot.com)
Von: Anonym
Updates > Asien > Kambodscha > Kompong Cham"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.
WHILE RECENTLY PERUSING A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR OUR HOMESTAY, I FOUND SEVERAL REFERENCES TO US IN TRAVEL AGENCIES. DON'T BELIEVE IT. IF YOU BOOKED THROUGH THEM YOU'D PAY MORE MONEY-IF WE ACCEPTED THE RESERVATION. WE ARE A MOM AND POP VENTURE AND HAVE NO DESIRE TO GO COMMERCIAL. WE ARE ACCOMODATING AMATEURS, AND FIERCELY PROUD OF IT. 
WE'VE JUST CLOSED A DEAL ON A BOAT, WELL RATHER A PIROGUE (SOUNDS MORE EXOTIC THAN DUG OUT). JUST AS SOON AS WE CAN GET THE SELLERS TO MAKE UP A BATCH OF WATER PROOFING FROM TREE PITCH WE'LL ADD A NEW ACTIVITY TO OUR SCHEDULE.
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