I'm not very familiar with Stung Treng, but I live about 120 km East of it, so I can provide you with some general advice on living in the Northeast.

Make sure you get yourself a motorcycle. Traffic is pretty slow and once you get used to it it's pretty convenient to drive one. But... For safety, bring your own helmet. Good helmets are hard to find in Cambodia (especially for foreign sized heads) and forget about finding one in Stung Treng.

The same goes for shoes. Bring an extra pair of good shoes.

Food... If you fancy Western food like muesly, yoghurt, or even milk, bring some when you come. It will be hard to find and if you can find it locally the price will probably scare you away even more than in Phnom Penh.

Medication... Most meds sold will be generics (or copies) from India, Bangladesh, etc. If you're picky about it (I am), bring stock from Phnom Penh. You can find find originals there.

Internet... WiFi is more and more common, but getting wi-fi in your home might be either expensive, or difficult, depending on where your house is. However, connecting the internet through your phone is a cheap solution. Make sure you bring a phone supporting 'working as a hotspot' (don't they all?) and check with your employer about local coverage. Forget about the the free sims given away at the airport, get yourself a decent (paid) sim so you can make use of the promotions of the provider which will give you much more bang for the buck than the free sims.

Books, or other entertainment... Stung Treng is a very sleepy town, and the initial excitement will wear off pretty fast. Bring stuff to do after work, and during lunch breaks. A lunch break typically lasts two hours, so.....

Safety... Ever since I have been in Cambodia I have had my own safe for my passport, back up money, and documents. Where I live I can buy a safe now, not sure about Stung Treng. I advise you to get one. If you use one with batteries, change them regularly. I once had leaking batteries destroying the lock. Attach the safe to the house.

Power(bank)... Power cuts are common, so are surges and drops in power. Expect powercuts during every (thunder)storm and during the dry season due to lack of power. Powerbanks can help you through and a UPS can protect stuff like TV and DVD player against surges and drops of power. Without protection modern TV's won't last long.

Water... When you arrive, check where your tap water comes from. Where I live they pump water from a stream behind 'Mango mountain' and sell it as 'clean water' for 2000r per M3. Not recommended for any use in my opinion, especially in the dry season, so do your checks. Stick to bottled water the first days to get used, avoid local branded water but stick to the main (national) brands. Local 'drinking water' is usually water from a well, or collected rain water, either way not purified / processed in any way. The same goes for the local 30L jars. If you want to go cheap, buy a good water purifier.

Food... Local food is generally safe, but get your protection fro HEP C (and B).

Mozzies... It mosquito season. People have dengue fever everywhere. Stung Treng too. There's not much you can do actually, because this mozzie will bite during the day. Ask for advice locally. Keep your living environment clean and avoid standing water around your space. Check the space of your neighbors too. Mozzies can easily cross 150m to feast on the taste of your blood. Expect to be bitten a lot in the first weeks. It will get less eventually. Don't scratch, use tigerbalm or bring something from your home country, you can get a nasty skin infection in no time with the conditions here.

Other visitor in the house... Be careful with the red centipedes (https://islandscene.com/Media/Default/J ... e-hero.png) (no matter how small, kill!) and scorpions. They will look for shelter in you house from may-november. Raid (poisonous spray) hardly harms them. If you go to the toilet at night, give the floor a quick check. Tuck in you mozzie net. I once woke up with a scorpion in my mozzie-net and centipedes are famous for a quit nap under your blanket or pillow, so prepare. In that case you'll be fine.

I lived in Stung Treng on and off for over a year. Nice place.

Wild meats (boars, deer and forest chicken mainly) are available at a number of the khmer restaurants on the riverside promenade as you go toward the bridge to the Lao border.

Panika's place does breakfasts, lunch dinner, pizza and "indian' food.

There are great Khmer food places scattered about. In general (I find), Northern provinces have the best Khmer food in the country, so you won't go hungry or broke.

Riverside gueshouse is popular with travellers, but is owned by the biggest French Khmer wanker you could even imagine. I'd swerve it.

Drinking - many, many , many KTV joints, any local restauraunt- and a quirky little family run place called "Guitar Milk" that does nibbles, cocktails and icy cold beers in a funky garden setting.

There's also a hospitality training hotel named "Le Tonle" just off the centre of town on the riverbank in a lovely old wooden house which does great food at basically giveaway prices (they have cheap rooms too). Just be prepared for enormously shy and timid servers cutting their teeth in a work environment for the first time and allow extra time as a result.

Internet and medication are in plentiful supply,internet is fast and cheap, never got any fake meds there, either.

Stung Treng does flood, so be careful where you choose to rent, but rents are cheap, a nice motel room with dressing room and separate bathroom, air con, flat screen, fridge, big bed will be around $7 per night.

It also has a steady flow of tourists in transit, many cyclists, in particular.


That's all I know about that.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 9:21 am

Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:44 am I lived in Stung Treng on and off for over a year. Nice place.

Wild meats (boars, deer and forest chicken mainly) are available at a number of the khmer restaurants on the riverside promenade as you go toward the bridge to the Lao border.

Yes you can buy the last of a number of endangered species to eat in Stung Treng.
Up to you tcw57.
But don't get caught by the cops, wildlife alliance (or me)

Lol, the cops own and are the main customers in the same places.

Boar and chicken are not endangered species, a few types of deer are, I'll grant that.