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Dangerous Travel / Siem Reap Airways / Airline Hell / → All Tags

EU Blacklists Siem Reap Airways And Others

Siem Reap Airways is the division of Bangkok Airways used exclusively to carrier tourists to and from Angkor Wat, the famed religious complex we helped you navigate recently. The busy airline is now suffering some seriously bad publicity after the European Commission banned the airline from using EU airports. The reason? Inadequate compliance with international aviation safety standards. Yikes.

Since the airline only flies between Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, and Siem Reap, the town adjacent to the Angkor ruins, it seems like the ban prohibiting the carrier from flying inside the EU is purely symbolic. But it also serves as a warning to travelers that the planes are considered sub-par. The commission also extended bans on Angolan carriers and two carriers from the Ukraine. All the more reason why land travel becomes more appealing with each passing economically-depressed day.

Related Stories:
· EU bans Siem Reap Airways [Reuters]
· Wats Up: Intro to Angkor [Jaunted]

[Photo: Taekwonweirdo]

Live Music / Rock Concerts / Angkor Wat / The Click Five / → All Tags

MTV, New England Rockers And Angkor Wat Unite

What do a hipster band from Boston and ancient temple ruins have in common? Apparently, something. On December 7, MTV will host a rock concert featuring the pop phenom The Click Five in front of the world’s largest religious monument, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.

Organizers picked the band because they’re touring the region and have a particularly avid fan base in Southeast Asia. The concert will attempt to draw attention to the country’s human trafficking problem.

Whether you consider it sacrilege or humanitarianism, at least MTV is doing something other than creating faux-reality TV shows for once. Not that we don’t enjoy those--it’s just good to change things up from the evil wrought by Spencer Pratt to look at some of the real ills plaguing the world. If we can’t have music videos and Loveline back, at least we can watch a band of attractive, floppy-haired musicians churn out some catchy tunes in front of a kick-ass backdrop.

Related Stories:
· US Rockers to Play Cambodia’s Angkor Wat [AFP, via Google]
· Jaunted's Guide to Angkor Wat [Jaunted]
· Live Music coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: ilovekyle_click5]

Amazing Race 13 / Amazing-Race-13 / Chasing Racers / Television Travel / TV Travel / → All Tags

Amazing Race 13: Do It Like a Madman

Chasing Racers is back, with a brand new Amazing Race 13 mashup. This map will update the morning after every new episode. Send along tips, rumors, gossip, locations and spoilers to our map editors, become a member and comment on the stories below and add to the Jaunted-Flickr photo pool to get in on the fray.

Remember to zoom in, out and around on the map--with so much happening in each episode, it's easy to miss a map point.

Hey race fans, Amazing Race 13 is in high gear, with teams making their way from Bolivia to New Zealand--where even Phil's dad made a cameo appearance on the mat. Kelly and Christy made some major gains and landed in the top three--ahead of archenemies Nick and Starr.

Will Ken and Tina keep up their winning strategy? Will Andrew and Dan get their act together enough to pull ahead? Will Dallas have an opportunity to take off his shirt and flex for the camera? Seven teams remain. Who will be eliminated next?

LET'S FIND OUT

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Temples / Angkor Wat Travel Guide / Public Transportation / → All Tags

Wats Up: There and Away

This week, we're all about Angkor.

There are plenty of options for traveling to and from Siem Reap. Most visitors arrive from either Bangkok or Phnom Penh. Each city provides hourly buses, daily boats and endless share taxis. Several airlines fly into Angkor's entry point daily, too. But every mode of transportation has its pros and cons.

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Temples / Angkor Wat Travel Guide / → All Tags

Wats Up: Facing the Poor

This week, we're all about Angkor.

Be prepared. Visitors to Angkor are confronted with great beauty and terrible ugliness. Indifference toward poverty occurs everywhere, but the contrast is even more stark in a city surrounded by a great world wonder and filled with foreign-owned, five-star resorts.

The ultimate irony of Angkor is that a thousand years ago, poor Khmers built the great temples they were never allowed to enter, and today they are essentially left out of Angkor's lucrative tourism industry.

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Temples / Angkor Wat Travel Guide / → All Tags

Wats Up: Assault Tactics

This week, we're all about Angkor.

The strategy for visiting the temples of Angkor comes down to this: Divide and conquer. Paying a thorough visit to each and every temple can take weeks, with dozens of structures within the main complex and dozens of other outliers dotted up to a two-hour drive from Angkor Wat.

Tackle the temples by breaking the area into regions, and hire a tuk tuk to take you to the temples in that area. For those with only one day to visit, after a morning at Angkor Wat, here's a breakdown of the highlights.

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Temples / Angkor Wat Travel Guide / → All Tags

Wats Up: Get Schooled on Angkor

This week, we're all about Angkor.

We're the kind of travelers who are loathe to admit we're tourists, but in the end, it's all semantics. When visiting Angkor Wat, Southeast Asia's tourism capital, it's better to embrace the moniker.

After purchasing the obligatory fanny pack, we suggest hiring a guide. No, really: It's impossible to fully understand the history and significance of the area's many ruins without one.

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Temples / Angkor Wat Travel Guide / → All Tags

Wats Up: Intro to Angkor

This summer, Cambodia enthusiast Tim Patterson shared his favorite spots in the country--but skipped Angkor Wat. The ancient temples overshadow Cambodia's many other assets, he argued.

True enough, but Angkor is world-renowned because it's pretty freaking incredible. Khmers have good reason to be proud of this heritage, and this week, we're laying out a guide to help you navigate the impressive and overwhelming network of temple ruins.

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Airlines / LCCs / Low Cost Carriers / Asia Travel / → All Tags

Asian LCCs: Bangkok and Siem Reap Airways Cut Fuel Surcharges

This week, we're headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the small town on which some eight million tourists descend annually to visit the adjacent, famed Angkor Wat temples. But now, we're wondering if we should've delayed the visit.

Siem Reap Airways and its parent company, Bangkok Airways, have both cut their fuel surcharges on both international and domestic flights. An SRA spokesbot says:

We do not want to take advantage of people and try to earn more money after the price of crude has already dropped.

The 15 percent fee cut only saves passengers about $5 per ticket. But since that's the average nightly hostel budget for someone on the SE Asia travel circuit, every little bit counts.

Related Stories:
· Airlines Cut Fuel Surcharges [Phnom Penh Post]
· Cambodia Field Trip [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wikimedia]