Hello beautiful people, and welcome back on the route!🙂

Today we fly once more together to Asia, and specifically in the gorgeous country of Cambodia, a land of extraordinary resilience and determination, forgotten engineering genius and a deeply painful modern history that shaped the peaceful and welcoming culture we can find here as travelers today!

Cambodia is one of my favourite countries in South-East Asia alongside Vietnam and Brunei, and since recently, with the possibility of entering the country with a Cambodia EArrival Visa, visiting it has never been easier and cheaper! 

In this article, I will share with you 7 curious fun facts about this wonderful country while backpacking through its roads!

Let’s dive right in! 🙂

7 Fun Facts about

Cambodia! 🙂

1) Cambodia has the only national flag

in the world with a building on it

When you look at it the first time, the flag of Cambodia feels kinda strange: a child would instinctively get colours to paint it!

Most national flags around the world do in fact rely on symbols: stars, stripes, suns, crescents, or bold color combinations.

Cambodia went in a far more confident direction and placed an actual monument in the middle of its flag… and very detailed too! (despite what most modern vessillologist would recommend as “good design”).

The structure shown is of course, the national architectonical treasure – the Angkor Wat, making Cambodia widely recognized as the only country whose national flag features a real building. 

Just the fact of being the only one, makes it easy to recognize and memorable (which I guess it’s the main goal of a flag in the first place!).

What makes it even more impressive though, is the building they chose!

The Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument on Earth, covering roughly 162 hectares, or well over 300 football fields.

It’s a place so incredible that we also inserted it in our ScratchPoster World Edition about the TOP 100 places to see in the world! 🙂

Built in the early 12th century under King Suryavarman II, it originally served as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu before gradually transforming into a Buddhist site.

Few monuments on Earth have changed roles while remaining continuously revered!

If you’re wondering what the three blue-red-blue stripes in the flag also mean: the blue represents the royalty / monarchy, while the red stripe (bigger than the blue) represents the nation itself, the courage of its people and the blood shed during the civil wars.

The Angkor Wat has been instead made purposefully white as that is an important colour for Buddhism as it represents calmness, integrity and justice 🙂

2. Cambodia was home

to one of the greatest empires in history

Between the 9th and 15th centuries, the Khmer Empire became one of the most powerful civilizations in Asia.

At different moments, it controlled or strongly influenced territories that today belong to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

The “Khmer” was not a minor regional kingdom: it was a serious imperial power with military reach, administration and enormous cultural influence!

Its capital, Angkor (located in the west side of Cambodia, near today’s city of Siem Reap) is believed by many historians to have supported close to one million inhabitants at its peak, which may have made it one of the largest pre-industrial cities on Earth!

While many medieval cities elsewhere were cramped and unsanitary, Angkor used sophisticated planning, reservoirs, canals and water management systems spread across vast areas to improve the health of its residents. 

Some of these networks are still visible today from satellite imagery!

Unfortunately, in the 15th century, the Khmer empire slowly declined due to a mix of reasons: war with its neighbours (Thai kingdoms), droughts that damages its precious water systems, overextension (like it happened with the Romans) and shift to maritime trade routes (which made the Khmer lose their strategic geographical power!).

The capital Angkor was ultimately sieged, raided and abandoned in the 16th century.

Despite its fall, much of the Khmer empire heritage remains even in today in modern Cambodia today: the Khmer language and script remain central to modern life, with its writing system (the “messy” one you can spot all over Cambodia!) considered one of the oldest still in use in Southeast Asia. 🙂

3. Cambodia’s civil war

and decades of conflict only truly ended in 1998

Many travelers (me included!) are surprised to learn that Cambodia’s peaceful modern chapter is relatively new.

In fact, before traveling there and visit local museums in Phnom Penh such as the Killing Fields (a lifetime experience I also inserted in my Top 7 Unknown Museums from around the World list)  I also barely new: the recent history of Cambodia is shockingly sad!

Between the 1975 and 1979, with the advent of the extremist communist party “Khmer Rouge” (red khmer), the country endured an extremely bloody civil war, foreign intervention, dictatorship, insurgency and instability, and the long cycle of conflict that portrayed itself in the following decades is often considered to have effectively ended only in 1998 with the death of Pol Pot, the leader of the “Khmer Rouge”.

In historical terms, that was basically yesterday: many adults in Cambodia today personally lived and remember those incredibly difficult and tear-breaking years that outsiders know little about!

During those Khmer rouge years, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people died through executions, starvation, forced labor and disease out of a population of around eight million (like 1 every 4 people…that is crazy!).

Cities were emptied, families separated, religion suppressed, and educated and informed people were specifically targeted: professors, doctors, literates… The Khmer aimed to kill (and partially succeeded!) all intellectuals as being “smart” was considered an unacceptable element of destabilization in an utopic communist nation.

The civil war was bloody, and also a battle between the poors: indoctrinated kids of 17-20 years old were carrying out the exterminations, often not even with firearms but by simply cutting throats with sharp palm leaves and by smashing babies against trees (in the photo above I took, it’s a tree from the Killing Fields which remembers all the babies that have been smashed on it with beast brutality). Heartbreaking sadness! (I was crying like a fountain in front of this tree while listening to my audio-guide…so sad!).

All in all, the Cambodia civil war remains one of the most devastating social collapses of the 20th century, a memento to how mankind can derail from sanity and to the brutality of any war! 

If you’ll ever visit Phnom Penh, a visit to the Killing Fields is, in my opinion, mandatory: it will change your view of Cambodia and mankind forever!

Yet the most striking part may be what came after.

Cambodia today often feels remarkably calm, people are extremely warm, smiling and welcoming. It almost seem that after such a brutal age, Cambodia had rebuild its peace, step by step, with the knowledge of how unvaluable that truly is!

4. Cambodia has a lake

that changes direction twice a year!

If someone told you there is a lake in Asia connected to a river that literally reverses flow every year, it would sound invented… how is that possible?

Yet, in Cambodia it really exists!

This lake is called “Tonlé Sap”, and it is Cambodia’s most important lake, linked to the Mekong River through the Tonlé Sap River.

While during normal times, the river flows into the Mekong, during the monsoon season the pressure of rising water in the larger Mekong pushes the TS river backward into the lake!

Yes, backwards!

How can this happen? Well…basically the Tonlè Sap River is an extremely flat river, with only a few centimeters of elevation difference compared to its mouth.

Because of this, during the season of heavy rains, the rising level of the Mekong, usually from May to October, forces the water back toward the lake, making its level rise instead of draining it out!

As a result, Tonlé Sap can expand from roughly 2,500 square kilometers to more than 12,000 square kilometers depending on the season (as said, it is a very flat area!).

In simple terms: the lake can multiply several times in size! 

That is one of the most dramatic natural water cycles on Earth 🙂

Said that, seasonal flooding is not a problem to locals which learned to adapt to its cycle and to benefit from it!

The waters bring fish, fertile sediment and food security for millions of people.

Entire communities have also adapted to it with floating villages, stilt houses, mobile schools and boat-based daily routines (as a tourist, it is possible to join tours to those floating towns 🙂 ). 

5. Cambodia’s currency includes

a bill worth about 12 cents

6. Cambodia celebrates New Year in April,

not January

While much of the world counts down on December 31st, and China has its lunar calendar that ends in February, Cambodia celebrates its traditional New Year in mid-April! 

Known as the “Cambodian New Year” or “Khmer New Year”, it usually lasts three days and follows the traditional solar calendar, marking the end of the harvest season and the start of a new agricultural cycle.

The Khmer New Year is also one of the biggest travel periods of the year inside Cambodia, as  millions of people return to their hometowns to reunite with family, visit temples and celebrate together (a bit like it happens in China on Lunar New Year!).

In this period, cities tend to become quieter while provincial towns and villages burst into life 🙂

Cambodian New Year traditions include:

• cleaning homes for a fresh start,
• offering food to monks,
• building small sand stupas at temples,
• and playing classic Khmer games in public spaces 🙂

In many areas, especially among younger generations, the celebrations now include joyful water fights similar to other Southeast Asian New Year festivals and Latino America Carnival Celebrations.

Personally, I find really interesting to see how, while we celebrate new year in full winter, Cambodian new year is linked to sunshine and the spring seasonal rebirth! 

7. Cambodia’s national symbol is everywhere: the naga serpent

Once you become aware of it, you will start seeing it everywhere!

We’ve been told to “look for the Naga” by our first TukTuk driver in Sihanoukville (town in the Southern coast of Cambodia), and we’ve seen hundreds while crossing the country! 😀

Across Cambodia, temple staircases, bridge railings, gateways and sacred entrances are often guarded by the “naga”, a mythical serpent usually carved with 5, 7 or 9 heads.

It is one of the most recognizable symbols in Khmer art and architecture.

As we’ve been told, in local tradition the naga represents protection against bad spirits, water – symbol of rebirth, fertility, prosperity and power.

Given how the country depended thought out its history on heavy monsoon rains, rice cultivation and vast hydraulic systems, the water-focused symbolism makes a lot of sense! 

Why the Naga though?

According to Khmer origin legends, the people of Cambodia descend from the union of an Indian prince and a naga princess named Soma. 

This means the naga is not just decorative mythology, but also woven into the national identity of Cambodia and its fascinating ancestral storytelling! 🙂

As a traeler, you can see spectacular examples of Naga at Angkor Thom, where giant stone nagas line ceremonial causeways, some stretching dozens of meters (look like straight out of video-games! xD).

Conclusions 🙂

And here we are at the end of this article :)

In this post we’ve seen together few curiousities about Cambodia: from its curious flag design, to the history of the glorious Khmer empire to the sad Khmer Rouge revolution, we’ve dig into new year celebrations, currency details, nagas and even a reverted lake 🙂

Before going, as always, I would like to ask you:

Which fact surprised you the most?

Do you know any other fun fact about Cambodia that could make this list?

Let us know in the comments below! 😀

Last but not least, if you’d need help with getting your Cambodia travel documents (or any other travel documents for neighbouring countries) sorted out, be sure to check out Travel Smart Travel Fast, in our opinion an excellent service to travel cheaper and free from bureaucratic stress! 🙂

Hereafter, I will leave you a few articles that you might also be interested in checking out:

•  Italy in 10 Days – The Super-Fast Itinerary + Free Download

• Destinations of the World: Discover More Cool Destinations!

• Travel Italy: All You Need to Discover the Bel Paese!

Thank you for reading, and see you in the next article! 🙂