go up to Banlung...not the smallest town but still remote and i liked it there,
places to eat, on the river, easy to get around, daily market and am sure u could just find a place 2 clicks out of town.

I've lived in a village in Zaire that i couldn't speak a word of the local language, but after a few months could communicate as had to.

How HARD is TO FIND house made of Cement to rent in rural area??

wont know till you go and look

Been there, done that, got malaria, cabin fever and improved my oral khmer language skills tenfold in no time.

I was in a village in preah vihear. After a year they connected it to national grid and even metfone broadband became available.

There aren't many quaint quiet places left. Growth rates over past few years have been parabolic.

I like stung treng myself.

Battanbang is full of pedos and twats and Christians. Siam Reap full of white knights rescuing dogs and cats that should be euthanized.

Kampong thom the same, but with added French.

Katie and K. Cham too densely populated and poor.

Rattankiri and mondulkiri are giant plantations and not much left besides whores and dust.

Kampot Province, far, far, away from the town could be cool.

Maybe Pursat or Banteay Meanchey. Nice people. Direct and better food in the west of Cambodia.

If you want to live in real rural Cambodia you will be facing all kinds of problems keeping you from writing your 'one or two books'. Such as....

• Access to more or less reliable electricity.

• Access to clean water. No problem in the rainy season, but the rainy season lasts from may-november.

• Food. Many love to sample local food. Living on it for weeks or months is a different thing.

• Dealing with the local wildlife. While we all agree ants and centipedes and millipedes and scorpions and snakes are useful animals we don't like them in and around our house too much. But they will be in the remote place. Dengue and malaria are also still serious issues there.

• Transport is a serious issue. Even a relatively short distance can take a while in the most remote areas. Mud tracks turn into slippery death traps in the rainy season and heavily eroded dust bowls in the dry season. In the remote parts of Ratanakiri many people have to wrap old motorcycle chains around their back tire in the rainy season to be able to drive uphill.

• Language. Everybody is learning English so it seems. Except the poorest. Try and guess where they tend to live.

I agree with Explorer for once, don't look for the deepest and darkest, stick to a small town. Find a small provincial town like Ban Lung (no river there Richard, just a dammed stream that turned into an artificial lake) or Sem Monorom. If that's still too 'urban' for you find a place in of the smaller towns around them. In Ratanakiri that could be Oh Chum, Phnom Swai, Kachanh, and many more choices. But don't forget when you stay there you're a day trip away from Phnom Penh. That's not for everyone. In those towns you will be able to find a more or less decent house for a fair price, you will be connected to the grid and you can use the internet through 3G. If you stay close enough to the center you might even have 4G. There won't be too much bugs bothering you and it's relatively safe because these kind of communities tend to know each other en look after each other a bit. Water is still a problem there though. The well will run dry earlier every year and the water provided by the local authorities is unprocessed water from either an artificial lake used for dumping hospital garbage or a stream behind town. You might want to look for a house with a drilled (deep) well, in that case you will have clean water all year round but not many houses have it.

prahocalypse now wrote: ↑Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:06 am

Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 02, 2019 9:53 pm Siem Reap full of white knights rescuing dogs and cats that should be euthanized.

Who should be euthanized?

The white knights or the dogs and cats?

It's probably a 50/50 of both.