Qualla: Southeast Asia https://qualla.com/southeast-asia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:38:24 GMT Qualla episodic false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Southeast Asia https://qualla.com/southeast-asia Koh Poulo Wai https://qualla.com/koh-poulo-wai/ Two uninhabited wooded ridges 95 kilometres off the Cambodian coast whose name means 'Wai Island Island' - and where, for four days in May 1975, the Vietnam War fired its last shots.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/0/koh-poulo-wai-wp/w3c0-koh-poulo-wai-combined.mp3 5:57 full Koh Tang https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. An uninhabited jungle island in the Gulf of Thailand whose two beaches decided a battle, and whose sand held the missing for thirty years.

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Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-combined.mp3 6:11 full Mayaguez Incident https://qualla.com/mayaguez-incident/ Photo credit U.S. Marine Corps, Public domain. In May 1975 the Khmer Rouge seized an American container ship; the rescue assault that followed hit an island where the crew had never been, and its dead are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

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Image: U.S. Marine Corps | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/mayaguez-incident-wp/w3c6-mayaguez-incident-combined.mp3 5:51 full An Thoi Naval Base https://qualla.com/an-thoi-naval-base/ At the southern tip of Phu Quoc, a fishing town became the base from which America fought a war in fifty-foot aluminium boats originally designed to ferry oil-rig workers.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/b/an-thoi-naval-base-wp/w3cb-an-thoi-naval-base-combined.mp3 6:19 full Phú Quốc Prison https://qualla.com/phu-quoc-prison/ The Coconut Tree Prison held more than thirty thousand people at its peak, the largest prisoner-of-war camp in South Vietnam - and it stands a few kilometres from one of Asia's fastest-growing beach resorts.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/c/phu-quoc-prison-wp/w3cc-phu-quoc-prison-combined.mp3 6:03 full Koh Russei https://qualla.com/koh-russei/ Bamboo Island is a 1.4-square-kilometre crescent off Sihanoukville with sand coarse enough to need shoes - a navy outpost that became a ten-dollar-a-night beach and then found itself in the path of Cambodia's biggest boom.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/e/koh-russei-wk/w3ce-koh-russei-combined.mp3 5:37 full Koh Ta Kiev https://qualla.com/koh-ta-kiev/ An ancestor's name, a navy pier and a few hammocks: the last quiet island off Sihanoukville, four kilometres and one world away from the boom.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/e/koh-ta-kiev-wp/w3ce-koh-ta-kiev-combined.mp3 4:45 full Ream Naval Base https://qualla.com/ream-naval-base/ Photo credit Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 190-acre Cambodian naval base on the Gulf of Thailand has become one of the most photographed patches of ground in Southeast Asia - because of what may or may not be moored at its northern pier.

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Image: Dmitry Makeev | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/e/ream-naval-base-wp/w3ce-ream-naval-base-combined.mp3 6:18 full Phú Quốc National Park https://qualla.com/phu-quoc-national-park/ Photo credit ntt, CC BY-SA 3.0. A park drawn to include the sea as well as the forest, holding the hills of northern Phú Quốc and some of the last dugong pasture in Vietnam.

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Image: ntt | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/f/phu-quoc-national-park-wp/w3cf-phu-quoc-national-park-combined.mp3 4:27 full Phu Quoc https://qualla.com/phu-quoc/ Vietnam's largest island sits fifteen kilometres off Cambodia, holds a prison museum, the world's most protected fish sauce, and a construction boom rebuilding it from the sand up.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/f/phu-quoc-wk/w3cf-phu-quoc-combined.mp3 6:13 full Koh Seh https://qualla.com/koh-seh/ Horse Island: uninhabited, mangrove-ringed, the far southeastern corner of Ream National Park — and routinely confused with a more famous island sixty kilometres away.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/g/koh-seh-wp/w3cg-koh-seh-combined.mp3 4:35 full Koh Thmei https://qualla.com/koh-thmei/ Three hundred metres from the Cambodian mainland and reachable only the long way round, Koh Thmei is the island Ream National Park was meant to protect — and the one being sold.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/g/koh-thmei-wp/w3cg-koh-thmei-combined.mp3 4:53 full Koh Rong Marine National Park https://qualla.com/koh-rong-marine-national-park/ Photo credit Wikirictor, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cambodia's first marine national park protects 524 square kilometres of reef, seagrass and nesting beach — and was declared a year before anyone was hired to patrol it.

Read more: Koh Rong Marine National Park on Qualla

Image: Wikirictor | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/k/koh-rong-marine-national-park-wp/w3ck-koh-rong-marine-national-park-combined.mp3 4:45 full Koh Rong Sanloem https://qualla.com/koh-rong-sanloem/ Photo credit Wikirictor, CC BY-SA 3.0. An island whose name means drowsiness, whose main bay was christened by a Victorian survey brig, and where thirty-nine American sailors spent the last night of America's war in Southeast Asia.

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Image: Wikirictor | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/k/koh-rong-sanloem-wp/w3ck-koh-rong-sanloem-combined.mp3 5:26 full Koh Rong https://qualla.com/koh-rong/ Photo credit TomFitzhenry, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cambodia's second-largest island has 23 beaches, four villages, water that glows at night, and a ninety-nine-year lease hanging over all of it.

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Image: TomFitzhenry | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/k/koh-rong-wk/w3ck-koh-rong-combined.mp3 5:10 full Dara Sakor International Airport https://qualla.com/dara-sakor-international-airport/ Two airlines, one destination, and a runway long enough to raise a decade of questions about what this airport in a Cambodian national park was really built for.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/q/dara-sakor-international-airport-wp/w3cq-dara-sakor-international-airport-combined.mp3 5:29 full Koh Sdach https://qualla.com/koh-sdach/ King's Island: a bean-shaped fishing settlement of Khmer and Chinese families, named for a spring a king is said to have opened with his sword.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/q/koh-sdach-wp/w3cq-koh-sdach-combined.mp3 4:19 full Botum Sakor National Park https://qualla.com/botum-sakor-national-park/ Photo credit Dean Croshere from Jomtien, Thailand, CC BY 2.0. A Cardamom peninsula holding perhaps a tenth of the world's pileated gibbons, roughly seventy percent of it signed away under concession.

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Image: Dean Croshere from Jomtien, Thailand | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/r/botum-sakor-national-park-wp/w3cr-botum-sakor-national-park-combined.mp3 5:56 full Cambrew Brewery https://qualla.com/cambrew-brewery/ Photo credit Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cambodia put its national brewery on the wrong side of the country on purpose, because the water here was right.

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Image: Dmitry Makeev | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/cambrew-brewery-wp/w3cs-cambrew-brewery-combined.mp3 4:38 full Independence Hotel https://qualla.com/independence-hotel/ Cambodians never called it the Independence — they called it "seven storeys," and the beach below still carries the nickname.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/independence-hotel-wp/w3cs-independence-hotel-combined.mp3 4:39 full Kbal Chhay Waterfall https://qualla.com/kbal-chhay-waterfall/ Photo credit Vladkras, CC BY-SA 3.0. A picnic spot in the hills behind Sihanoukville that is also, again, the source of the city's drinking water.

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Image: Vladkras | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/kbal-chhay-waterfall-wp/w3cs-kbal-chhay-waterfall-combined.mp3 4:25 full Koh Puos https://qualla.com/koh-puos/ Photo credit Wikirictor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The bridge to Snake Island was finished in 2011; the city it was meant to serve is still being argued over.

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Image: Wikirictor | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/koh-puos-wp/w3cs-koh-puos-combined.mp3 4:25 full Preah Sihanouk province https://qualla.com/preah-sihanouk-province/ Photo credit Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cambodia's smallest coastal province carries two names — Port of the Moon and Holy Sihanouk — and twenty-two islands between them.

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Image: Dmitry Makeev | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/preah-sihanouk-province-wp/w3cs-preah-sihanouk-province-combined.mp3 5:54 full Sihanoukville Autonomous Port https://qualla.com/sihanoukville-autonomous-port/ Photo credit Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0. France paid twelve million dollars to build the deep-water port whose whole purpose was to end Cambodia's dependence on French-run Saigon.

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Image: Dmitry Makeev | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/sihanoukville-autonomous-port-wp/w3cs-sihanoukville-autonomous-port-combined.mp3 4:40 full Sihanoukville https://qualla.com/sihanoukville/ Cambodia built a city from nothing in five years to reach its own sea, and has spent every decade since arguing over who gets to use it.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/sihanoukville-wp/w3cs-sihanoukville-combined.mp3 6:03 full St. Michael's Church, Sihanoukville https://qualla.com/st-michael-s-church-sihanoukville/ Photo credit Wikirictor, CC BY-SA 3.0. A concrete A-frame on a hill above the bay, spared by the Khmer Rouge because it made a serviceable animal shed.

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Image: Wikirictor | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/s/st-michael-s-church-sihanoukville-wp/w3cs-st-michael-s-church-sihanoukville-combined.mp3 5:21 full Bokor, Cambodia https://qualla.com/bokor-cambodia/ Photo credit Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nine hundred people died building a mountain resort so the French could escape the heat; a century later the same plateau is becoming Cambodia's newest city.

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Image: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/u/bokor-cambodia-wp/w3cu-bokor-cambodia-combined.mp3 6:10 full Bokor Hill Station https://qualla.com/bokor-hill-station/ A French colonial pleasure resort built on a Cambodian mountaintop at enormous cost in Cambodian lives, abandoned twice, held by the Khmer Rouge into the 1990s, and now rebuilt as a casino resort.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/u/bokor-hill-station-wp/w3cu-bokor-hill-station-combined.mp3 5:37 full Church of Mount Bokor https://qualla.com/church-of-mount-bokor/ Photo credit Missions étrangères de Paris, CC BY-SA 4.0. A stone church built over nine years on a Cambodian mountaintop, occupied as a barracks by the Khmer Rouge, shot at by Vietnamese forces, and handed back to the Catholic Church on Christmas Eve 2017.

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Image: Missions étrangères de Paris | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/u/church-of-mount-bokor-wp/w3cu-church-of-mount-bokor-combined.mp3 5:19 full Dâmrei Mountains https://qualla.com/damrei-mountains/ Photo credit Wikirictor, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Elephant Mountains take Cambodia's heaviest rain on one flank and a quarter of it on the other, and the pepper grown on their skirts went from a million poles to four tonnes a year and back again.

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Image: Wikirictor | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/u/damrei-mountains-wp/w3cu-damrei-mountains-combined.mp3 4:59 full Bokor National Park https://qualla.com/bokor-national-park/ Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. Nine hundred labourers died in nine months so that French officials could escape the heat, and the hill station they built has been abandoned twice, fought over, and is now being rebuilt as a resort.

Read more: Bokor National Park on Qualla

Image: Mx. Granger | CC0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/v/bokor-national-park-wk/w3cv-bokor-national-park-combined.mp3 5:39 full Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary https://qualla.com/tatai-wildlife-sanctuary/ Photo credit en:User:Cburnett, CC BY-SA 3.0. Created by sub-decree in 2016 and shrunk by another one in 2021, this corner of the Cardamom Mountains is where Cambodia's conservation ambitions and its land economy meet head-on.

Read more: Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary on Qualla

Image: en:User:Cburnett | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/x/tatai-wildlife-sanctuary-wp/w3cx-tatai-wildlife-sanctuary-combined.mp3 4:41 full PMTair Flight 241 https://qualla.com/pmtair-flight-241/ Photo credit Arbus23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Twenty-two people on a short hop from Angkor to the beach vanished into cloud over the Elephant Mountains in 2007, and four days of searching ended on a slope at 2,700 feet.

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Image: Arbus23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/y/pmtair-flight-241-wp/w3cy-pmtair-flight-241-combined.mp3 5:16 full Kirirom 1 Hydropower Dam https://qualla.com/kirirom-1-hydropower-dam/ Cambodia's first hydroelectric station was built with Yugoslav help, silenced for twenty-seven years by war and the Khmer Rouge, and switched back on in 2002 by a Chinese state company.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/z/kirirom-1-hydropower-dam-wp/w3cz-kirirom-1-hydropower-dam-combined.mp3 5:05 full Đất Mũi https://qualla.com/at-mui/ Photo credit ASM~viwiki, CC BY-SA 3.0. At the southern end of Vietnam, the land is still being built: Đất Mũi gains up to eighty metres of new ground a year, and loses some of it back to the sea.

Read more: Đất Mũi on Qualla

Image: ASM~viwiki | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/8/at-mui-wp/w3d8-at-mui-combined.mp3 6:01 full Phan Ngọc Hiển https://qualla.com/phan-ngoc-hien/ A blacklisted young schoolteacher was posted to the last village in Vietnam to keep him quiet; eighty years later the district, the commune and the school all carry his name.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/8/phan-ngoc-hien-wp/w3d8-phan-ngoc-hien-combined.mp3 5:06 full Mũi Cà Mau National Park https://qualla.com/mui-ca-mau-national-park/ Photo credit Ctvn wikiviet, Public domain. A national park at Vietnam's southern tip where the land itself is new — mangroves colonise mud that did not exist last year, building a seawall the delta cannot do without.

Read more: Mũi Cà Mau National Park on Qualla

Image: Ctvn wikiviet | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/9/mui-ca-mau-national-park-wp/w3d9-mui-ca-mau-national-park-combined.mp3 5:22 full Năm Căn district https://qualla.com/nam-can-district/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Named for five stilt houses raised on the mud two centuries ago, Năm Căn straddles the only river in Vietnam that both begins and ends at the sea — and it was struck off the map in 2025.

Read more: Năm Căn district on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/9/nam-can-district-wp/w3d9-nam-can-district-combined.mp3 5:09 full Nam Can Naval Base https://qualla.com/nam-can-naval-base/ Unable to build on ground that would not hold, the US Navy anchored thirteen steel barges in the middle of a Cà Mau river and called it a base.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/9/nam-can-naval-base-wp/w3d9-nam-can-naval-base-combined.mp3 5:21 full Cà Mau Peninsula https://qualla.com/ca-mau-peninsula/ Photo credit Viet Bach from Saigon, Vietnam, CC BY 2.0. A triangle of Mekong silt averaging seven feet above the sea, held together by mangrove roots and threaded by more water than road.

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Image: Viet Bach from Saigon, Vietnam | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/e/ca-mau-peninsula-wp/w3de-ca-mau-peninsula-combined.mp3 5:01 full Cà Mau province https://qualla.com/ca-mau-province/ Photo credit Genghiskhanviet, Public domain. Vietnam's southernmost province takes its name from the Khmer for "dark water" — and the water is still dark, still rising, and still the reason anyone lives here.

Read more: Cà Mau province on Qualla

Image: Genghiskhanviet | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/e/ca-mau-province-wp/w3de-ca-mau-province-combined.mp3 5:49 full Sông Đốc https://qualla.com/song-oc/ From this river mouth on the Gulf of Thailand, the last ships of the 1955 regroupment sailed north — and a fishing town grew up around the memory.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/e/song-oc-wp/w3de-song-oc-combined.mp3 4:55 full Đầm Dơi https://qualla.com/am-doi-district/ Photo credit Hoangvantoanajc, CC BY-SA 3.0. Named for its bats, mapped beside a swamp named for its crows, and isolated by crocodile-haunted channels until living memory — Đầm Dơi is the delta's most literary corner.

Read more: Đầm Dơi on Qualla

Image: Hoangvantoanajc | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/f/am-doi-district-wp/w3df-am-doi-district-combined.mp3 5:49 full Cà Mau Gas-Power-Fertilizer Complex https://qualla.com/ca-mau-gas-power-fertilizer-complex/ Fuelled by a gas field two countries agreed not to argue over, this 1,500-megawatt complex sits at a river junction on the edge of a peat swamp.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/s/ca-mau-gas-power-fertilizer-complex-wp/w3ds-ca-mau-gas-power-fertilizer-complex-combined.mp3 4:58 full U Minh Hạ National Park https://qualla.com/u-minh-ha-national-park/ A melaleuca forest growing on metres of its own accumulated peat, where the arrival of the rains turns the whole landscape into a fish nursery.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/s/u-minh-ha-national-park-wp/w3ds-u-minh-ha-national-park-combined.mp3 4:46 full U Minh district https://qualla.com/u-minh-district/ Photo credit Mongnt, CC BY-SA 3.0. A flat, salty stretch of the Cà Mau coast that gave its name to Vietnam's most famous swamp forest, took the full force of Typhoon Linda, and ceased to exist as a district in 2025.

Read more: U Minh district on Qualla

Image: Mongnt | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/t/u-minh-district-wp/w3dt-u-minh-district-combined.mp3 4:47 full Ca Mau https://qualla.com/ca-mau/ Photo credit Genghiskhanviet, Public domain. Mainland Vietnam's southernmost city carries a Khmer name meaning black water, moves most of its freight by boat, and sits at the end of the country's road network.

Read more: Ca Mau on Qualla

Image: Genghiskhanviet | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/u/ca-mau-wk/w3du-ca-mau-combined.mp3 4:31 full Giá Rai https://qualla.com/gia-rai/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. A shrimp-farming town on Highway 1 whose fields hosted the most famous peasant land case of French Cochinchina, and whose parish church became a pilgrimage site for the whole delta.

Read more: Giá Rai on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/u/gia-rai-wp/w3du-gia-rai-combined.mp3 5:19 full U Minh Thượng National Park https://qualla.com/u-minh-thuong-national-park/ Photo credit Mongnt, CC BY-SA 3.0. A rare peat swamp forest on the Cà Mau peninsula, biologically the richest corner of the Mekong Delta and, for thirty years, one of the hardest places in Vietnam to find anyone who did not want to be found.

Read more: U Minh Thượng National Park on Qualla

Image: Mongnt | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/w/u-minh-thuong-national-park-wp/w3dw-u-minh-thuong-national-park-combined.mp3 4:53 full Hậu Giang province https://qualla.com/hau-giang-province/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Mekong Delta province that existed for twenty-one years, kept a floating market where seven rivers meet, and sits so low that half a metre of sea-level rise would put four-fifths of it under water.

Read more: Hậu Giang province on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/d/z/hau-giang-province-wp/w3dz-hau-giang-province-combined.mp3 4:42 full Côn Đảo National Park https://qualla.com/con-ao-national-park/ Vietnam's most complete marine park protects more water than land — 360 coral species, eleven kinds of seagrass, a dugong nobody can reliably find, and the country's largest sea turtle programme.

Read more: Côn Đảo National Park on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/c/con-ao-national-park-wp/w3ec-con-ao-national-park-combined.mp3 5:39 full Côn Đảo Prison https://qualla.com/con-ao-prison/ For 113 years the French and then South Vietnamese governments used an island prison to hold people whose crime was opposition — until an American delegation walked off the official tour in July 1970.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/c/con-ao-prison-wp/w3ec-con-ao-prison-combined.mp3 6:11 full Côn Đảo Special Zone https://qualla.com/con-ao-special-administrative-region/ Sixteen granite islands 180 kilometres out in the South China Sea became, in 2025, a special zone of Ho Chi Minh City — the latest in a long line of distant capitals to claim them.

Read more: Côn Đảo Special Zone on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/c/con-ao-special-administrative-region-wp/w3ec-con-ao-special-administrative-region-combined.mp3 6:07 full Con Dao https://qualla.com/con-dao/ Photo credit DC112, CC BY-SA 3.0. Vietnam's clearest water and emptiest beaches surround an archipelago that most Vietnamese travellers visit not for the sea but for a cemetery.

Read more: Con Dao on Qualla

Image: DC112 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/c/con-dao-wk/w3ec-con-dao-combined.mp3 5:26 full Hàng Dương Cemetery https://qualla.com/hang-duong-cemetery/ Vietnam's great pilgrimage cemetery holds 1,913 graves for a prison island that killed tens of thousands — and nearly two-thirds of the markers carry no name.

Read more: Hàng Dương Cemetery on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/c/hang-duong-cemetery-wp/w3ec-hang-duong-cemetery-combined.mp3 6:04 full Bạc Liêu https://qualla.com/bac-lieu-province/ A childless marriage ended here in 1916, and the song the husband wrote about it became the backbone of southern Vietnamese opera - one of several improbable legacies left by a coastal province that no longer exists.

Read more: Bạc Liêu on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/h/bac-lieu-province-wp/w3eh-bac-lieu-province-combined.mp3 6:10 full Ngã Bảy https://qualla.com/nga-bay/ Seven canals meet here in a single wide star of brown water - and when the government renamed the town in 2005, the people who lived on that water made it change its mind.

Read more: Ngã Bảy on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/p/nga-bay-wp/w3ep-nga-bay-combined.mp3 4:56 full Sóc Trăng Airfield https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. Thirty-two hundred feet of asphalt in the Mekong Delta - one of the few hard runways in South Vietnam in 1962, which is why the first Marine helicopters in the country landed here.

Read more: Sóc Trăng Airfield on Qualla

Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-soc-trang-airfield-combined.mp3 5:31 full Sóc Trăng Province https://qualla.com/soc-trang-province/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. The province's name is a Khmer phrase worn smooth by Vietnamese mouths - and the people it came from are still here, a third of the population, on land where the border moved around them.

Read more: Sóc Trăng Province on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-province-wp/w3eq-soc-trang-province-combined.mp3 5:28 full Sóc Trăng https://qualla.com/soc-trang/ A delta city of fifty pagodas where the temples are Khmer, the pastry is Teochew, and one monastery is famous mainly for the thousands of fruit bats that live in its garden.

Read more: Sóc Trăng on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-wk/w3eq-soc-trang-combined.mp3 5:40 full Bassac River https://qualla.com/bassac-river/ Photo credit Ondřej Žváček, CC BY 2.5. One river, three names and 190 kilometres of working water: the Mekong's largest distributary carries barges, bridges and half of Vietnam's rice out to the sea.

Read more: Bassac River on Qualla

Image: Ondřej Žváček | CC BY 2.5

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/w/bassac-river-wp/w3ew-bassac-river-combined.mp3 5:44 full Tra Vinh https://qualla.com/tra-vinh/ A small Mekong Delta city that grew up under old trees, where Khmer pagodas outnumber landmarks and a square pond keeps a 400-year-old argument alive.

Read more: Tra Vinh on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/w/tra-vinh-wk/w3ew-tra-vinh-combined.mp3 5:01 full Trà Vinh province https://qualla.com/tra-vinh-province/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Erased from the map in June 2025 after two centuries of being renamed, this delta province between two river branches still answers to the Khmer name that started it all.

Read more: Trà Vinh province on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/x/tra-vinh-province-wp/w3ex-tra-vinh-province-combined.mp3 5:59 full Hà Tiên Islands https://qualla.com/ha-tien-islands/ Photo credit Đỗ Doãn Hoàng, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sixteen low islands in the Gulf of Thailand that Vietnam still calls the Pirate Islands - a name earned during the anarchy that followed the fall of Hà Tiên.

Read more: Hà Tiên Islands on Qualla

Image: Đỗ Doãn Hoàng | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/4/ha-tien-islands-wp/w3f4-ha-tien-islands-combined.mp3 5:34 full Koh Ach Seh https://qualla.com/koh-ach-seh/ A small island in the Kep Archipelago where an old Khmer Rouge outpost became the base for Cambodia's most stubborn experiment in marine protection.

Read more: Koh Ach Seh on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/4/koh-ach-seh-wp/w3f4-koh-ach-seh-combined.mp3 4:44 full Kep province https://qualla.com/kep-province/ Photo credit Kiensvay, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cambodia's smallest province holds the ruins of its most glamorous resort - and the truth about how those ruins were made is not the one usually told.

Read more: Kep province on Qualla

Image: Kiensvay | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/5/kep-province-wp/w3f5-kep-province-combined.mp3 5:56 full Kep https://qualla.com/kep/ A small Cambodian seaside town where lunch is still swimming when you buy it, and the crab comes cooked in green Kampot pepper.

Read more: Kep on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/5/kep-wk/w3f5-kep-combined.mp3 4:49 full Phnom Voar https://qualla.com/phnom-voar/ Photo credit Paxse, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 284-metre range in southern Cambodia that was bombed by B-52s, used for Khmer Rouge prisons and killing fields, and held out as one of the regime's last strongholds until 1994.

Read more: Phnom Voar on Qualla

Image: Paxse | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/5/phnom-voar-wp/w3f5-phnom-voar-combined.mp3 5:27 full Hà Tiên Province https://qualla.com/ha-tien-province/ Photo credit Doãn Hiệu at Vietnamese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Ming refugee built a port on the Gulf of Siam, gave it to the Vietnamese lords, and founded a frontier state that ran a poetry society and once owned what is now the Cambodian coast.

Read more: Hà Tiên Province on Qualla

Image: Doãn Hiệu at Vietnamese Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/7/ha-tien-province-wp/w3f7-ha-tien-province-combined.mp3 5:30 full Hà Tiên https://qualla.com/ha-tien/ At the far western end of the Mekong Delta, a small Vietnamese seaside town keeps a Chinese founder's tombs on its hillside, a tidal lagoon at its back, and Cambodia seven kilometres up the road.

Read more: Hà Tiên on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/7/ha-tien-wk/w3f7-ha-tien-combined.mp3 5:01 full Nguyễn Trung Trực Temple https://qualla.com/nguyen-trung-truc-temple/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fishermen hid an executed rebel's memory inside a shrine to the whale spirit; a century and a half later, tens of thousands come to eat free meals in his courtyard.

Read more: Nguyễn Trung Trực Temple on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/8/nguyen-trung-truc-temple-wp/w3f8-nguyen-trung-truc-temple-combined.mp3 5:17 full Rạch Giá https://qualla.com/rach-gia/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. The first place in Vietnam to manufacture its own land out of the sea, Rạch Giá became a provincial capital in the same year it stopped being a city.

Read more: Rạch Giá on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/8/rach-gia-wp/w3f8-rach-gia-combined.mp3 5:34 full Tam Bảo Temple https://qualla.com/tam-bao-temple/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 4.0. A Rạch Giá pagoda where an orphanage, a free clinic and a hidden cache of resistance leaflets all shared the same courtyard.

Read more: Tam Bảo Temple on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/8/tam-bao-temple-wp/w3f8-tam-bao-temple-combined.mp3 5:16 full Tonle Sap–Mekong Peat Swamp Forests https://qualla.com/tonle-sap-mekong-peat-swamp-forests/ Photo credit Every-leaf-that-trembles, CC BY-SA 4.0. Eighty-five percent farmland, fifteen percent forest, less than one percent protected — the drowned paperbark swamps of the lower Mekong are among the most completely converted landscapes on earth.

Read more: Tonle Sap–Mekong Peat Swamp Forests on Qualla

Image: Every-leaf-that-trembles | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/8/tonle-sap-mekong-peat-swamp-forests-wp/w3f8-tonle-sap-mekong-peat-swamp-forests-combined.mp3 5:22 full Kiên Giang province https://qualla.com/kien-giang-province/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Vietnam abolished Kiên Giang in 2025, but the name still runs along its coast, its islands and every bottle of Phú Quốc fish sauce.

Read more: Kiên Giang province on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/b/kien-giang-province-wp/w3fb-kien-giang-province-combined.mp3 5:41 full Bảy Núi https://qualla.com/bay-nui/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Seven granite hills stranded in a delta of pure silt, holy to millenarian Buddhists, hollowed out by a war, and shadowed by a massacre.

Read more: Bảy Núi on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/e/bay-nui-wp/w3fe-bay-nui-combined.mp3 6:01 full Long Xuyên https://qualla.com/long-xuyen/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. A Mekong city that took its name from its own marketplace, ships the delta's rice, and produced two men who ended up on opposite sides of the same war.

Read more: Long Xuyên on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/f/long-xuyen-wp/w3ff-long-xuyen-combined.mp3 5:37 full Óc Eo https://qualla.com/oc-eo/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 450-hectare port found from the air in 1942, laid out on canals in the Mekong Delta - where Roman gold, locally struck silver and the oldest spice residues in Southeast Asia came out of the same mud.

Read more: Óc Eo on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/f/oc-eo-wp/w3ff-oc-eo-combined.mp3 6:12 full An Giang province https://qualla.com/an-giang-province/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Roman gold in a rice field, a border cut by hand with eighty thousand shovels, and a goddess who may once have been Shiva.

Read more: An Giang province on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/g/an-giang-province-wp/w3fg-an-giang-province-combined.mp3 6:00 full Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên https://qualla.com/queen-of-peace-cathedral-long-xuyen/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. A 55-metre bell tower rising over the flattest landscape in Vietnam, built by a congregation that had mostly arrived within living memory.

Read more: Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/g/queen-of-peace-cathedral-long-xuyen-wp/w3fg-queen-of-peace-cathedral-long-xuyen-combined.mp3 4:34 full Kampot province https://qualla.com/kampot-province/ Photo credit Bolt9, CC BY-SA 3.0. A province of pepper vines, salt pans and a mountain whose abandoned French resort cost nine hundred lives to build.

Read more: Kampot province on Qualla

Image: Bolt9 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/h/kampot-province-wp/w3fh-kampot-province-combined.mp3 6:00 full Kampot https://qualla.com/kampot/ A river town that was once Cambodia's only door to the sea, now better known for salt, pepper and a roundabout with a giant concrete durian in it.

Read more: Kampot on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/h/kampot-wk/w3fh-kampot-combined.mp3 5:52 full Phnom Sorsia https://qualla.com/phnom-sorsia/ Photo credit PsamatheM, CC BY-SA 4.0. A limestone hill east of Kampot where a stalagmite is revered as a white elephant and several thousand bats leave through a chimney in the rock each evening.

Read more: Phnom Sorsia on Qualla

Image: PsamatheM | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/h/phnom-sorsia-wp/w3fh-phnom-sorsia-combined.mp3 4:22 full Cambodian campaign https://qualla.com/cambodian-campaign/ Photo credit Taken by Pacific Stars and Stripes photographer, Public domain. In 1970 two armies crossed into Cambodia to capture a headquarters that had packed up and left six weeks earlier — and the country they entered never recovered.

Read more: Cambodian campaign on Qualla

Image: Taken by Pacific Stars and Stripes photographer | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/p/cambodian-campaign-wp/w3fp-cambodian-campaign-combined.mp3 6:37 full Operation Cuu Long 44-02 https://qualla.com/operation-cuu-long-44-02/ For twelve days in January 1971, two South Vietnamese task forces fought up a Cambodian mountain road to reopen the highway that fed Phnom Penh.

Read more: Operation Cuu Long 44-02 on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/p/operation-cuu-long-44-02-wp/w3fp-operation-cuu-long-44-02-combined.mp3 5:02 full Chau Doc https://qualla.com/chau-doc/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Mekong border town where a Funan-era stone god became a Vietnamese goddess, catfish are farmed under floating houses, and mosque, pagoda and Khmer wat share the same riverbank.

Read more: Chau Doc on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/s/chau-doc-wk/w3fs-chau-doc-combined.mp3 5:30 full Lê Văn Duyệt https://qualla.com/le-van-duyet/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. The intersex general who cut the Vĩnh Tế Canal across this borderland, ruled the Vietnamese south as viceroy, defied two emperors, and was punished after death by having his tomb desecrated.

Read more: Lê Văn Duyệt on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/s/le-van-duyet-wp/w3fs-le-van-duyet-combined.mp3 6:03 full Tịnh Biên https://qualla.com/tinh-bien/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. A Vietnamese border crossing beneath the Seven Mountains, where the highway changes its number, the population is heavily Khmer, and the delta's only real hills carry both pilgrims and a very hard memory.

Read more: Tịnh Biên on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/s/tinh-bien-wp/w3fs-tinh-bien-combined.mp3 6:02 full Trà Sư Cajuput Forest https://qualla.com/tra-su-cajuput-forest/ A flooded melaleuca forest planted in 1983 to heal poisoned ground, now 845 hectares of green water, storks and darters on the An Giang border.

Read more: Trà Sư Cajuput Forest on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/s/tra-su-cajuput-forest-wp/w3fs-tra-su-cajuput-forest-combined.mp3 5:41 full Vĩnh Tế Canal https://qualla.com/vinh-te-canal/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eighty thousand Vietnamese and Khmer labourers cut eighty-seven kilometres of straight water across the frontier - and the canal carries the name of the woman who sat with their families.

Read more: Vĩnh Tế Canal on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/s/vinh-te-canal-wp/w3fs-vinh-te-canal-combined.mp3 5:04 full Hòa Hảo https://qualla.com/hoa-hao/ Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. A twenty-year-old healer in a delta village founded a religion of bare wooden altars and four daily prayers - and within five years it had an army, a territory and a body count.

Read more: Hòa Hảo on Qualla

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/u/hoa-hao-wp/w3fu-hoa-hao-combined.mp3 6:27 full Angkor Borei and Phnom Da https://qualla.com/angkor-borei-and-phnom-da/ Photo credit Martpan, CC BY-SA 3.0. A living Cambodian market town sits on top of what may be the country's oldest city - and on the granite hill three kilometres away stands the sculpture that begins the history of Khmer art.

Read more: Angkor Borei and Phnom Da on Qualla

Image: Martpan | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/angkor-borei-and-phnom-da-wp/w3fw-angkor-borei-and-phnom-da-combined.mp3 6:31 full Angkor Borei Museum https://qualla.com/angkor-borei-museum/ A one-room district museum in a pagoda yard holds the material of Funan - and lends its sculpture to Cleveland, because the city it stands in was a capital before Angkor existed.

Read more: Angkor Borei Museum on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/angkor-borei-museum-wp/w3fw-angkor-borei-museum-combined.mp3 5:40 full Baladityapura https://qualla.com/baladityapura/ A seventh-century Khmer capital known almost entirely from a scholarly argument — the vanished city of Water Chenla, somewhere in the lower Mekong, between the fall of Funan and the founding of Angkor.

Read more: Baladityapura on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/baladityapura-wp/w3fw-baladityapura-combined.mp3 6:04 full Búng Bình Thiên https://qualla.com/bung-binh-thien/ Photo credit Hoangvantoanajc, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Mekong runs the colour of milky tea past a lake that refuses to go brown - which is why the Cham and Vietnamese who live on its banks call it the lake from the sky.

Read more: Búng Bình Thiên on Qualla

Image: Hoangvantoanajc | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/bung-binh-thien-wp/w3fw-bung-binh-thien-combined.mp3 4:51 full Doun Kaev https://qualla.com/doun-kaev/ Photo credit Tonbi ko, CC BY-SA 4.0. The quiet provincial capital of Cambodia's silk country, where two-thirds of the nation's weavers work beneath their houses and an hour's drive away lies the delta that produced the first Khmer kingdoms.

Read more: Doun Kaev on Qualla

Image: Tonbi ko | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/doun-kaev-wk/w3fw-doun-kaev-combined.mp3 6:02 full Takéo province https://qualla.com/takeo-province/ Photo credit UM, CC0. A flat, flooded province called the cradle of Khmer civilization, which produced both the man who won an Oscar for playing a genocide survivor and one of the men who ran the genocide.

Read more: Takéo province on Qualla

Image: UM | CC0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/w/takeo-province-wp/w3fw-takeo-province-combined.mp3 5:42 full Phnom Chisor https://qualla.com/phnom-chisor/ An eleventh-century Khmer temple called the Mountain of the Sun, reached by six hundred unshaded steps, looking out over the delta where Cambodian civilisation began.

Read more: Phnom Chisor on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/f/x/phnom-chisor-wp/w3fx-phnom-chisor-combined.mp3 5:37 full Koh Kong Island https://qualla.com/koh-kong-island/ Photo credit Richard Taylor from Australia, CC BY 2.0. Cambodia's largest island has 53 kilometres of coastline, six beaches with their own freshwater lagoons, and nowhere at all that a visitor is permitted to spend the night.

Read more: Koh Kong Island on Qualla

Image: Richard Taylor from Australia | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/0/koh-kong-island-wp/w610-koh-kong-island-combined.mp3 4:49 full Tatai https://qualla.com/tatai/ A truck stop where Highway 48 crosses a river in the Cardamom Mountains - and one of the last waters on Earth holding wild Siamese crocodiles.

Read more: Tatai on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/3/tatai-wk/w613-tatai-combined.mp3 4:42 full Hat Lek https://qualla.com/hat-lek/ Photo credit Travelpleb, CC BY-SA 4.0. The southernmost gate on the 817-kilometre Thai-Cambodian frontier: a handful of shacks, a wall of money changers, and a barrier whose opening is now a political question.

Read more: Hat Lek on Qualla

Image: Travelpleb | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/4/hat-lek-wk/w614-hat-lek-combined.mp3 4:44 full Khlong Yai https://qualla.com/khlong-yai/ A Thai town on a two-kilometre sliver of coast that takes nearly five metres of rain a year - and for seven years sheltered more Cambodian refugees than it had residents.

Read more: Khlong Yai on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/4/khlong-yai-wp/w614-khlong-yai-combined.mp3 4:58 full Koh Kong https://qualla.com/koh-kong/ A Cambodian border town that spent a century under Siamese rule, kept by France in a 1907 treaty swap, and still takes payment in three currencies.

Read more: Koh Kong on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/4/koh-kong-wk/w614-koh-kong-combined.mp3 5:01 full Chi Phat https://qualla.com/chi-phat/ A commune deep in the Cardamoms that rebuilt its economy on the premise that a living forest pays better than a cleared one.

Read more: Chi Phat on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/8/chi-phat-wk/w618-chi-phat-combined.mp3 4:10 full Koh Kong province https://qualla.com/koh-kong-province/ Photo credit Yourecoveredinbees, CC BY 4.0. Siam ran this coast until 1904, France kept it in a 1907 swap, and a century later Chinese investors began rebuilding it from the shoreline inward.

Read more: Koh Kong province on Qualla

Image: Yourecoveredinbees | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/8/koh-kong-province-wp/w618-koh-kong-province-combined.mp3 6:02 full Southern Cardamom National Park https://qualla.com/southern-cardamom-national-park/ Photo credit Andyb3947, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 4,104-square-kilometre park built partly for a tiger that no longer exists in Cambodia, and funded by carbon credits that displaced the people already living there.

Read more: Southern Cardamom National Park on Qualla

Image: Andyb3947 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/9/southern-cardamom-national-park-wp/w619-southern-cardamom-national-park-combined.mp3 5:51 full Areng Valley https://qualla.com/areng-valley/ A Cardamom valley where crocodiles are ancestors, the forest belongs to spirits, and six centuries of Chong belief have done the work of a protected area.

Read more: Areng Valley on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/d/areng-valley-wp/w61d-areng-valley-combined.mp3 4:18 full Cheay Areng Dam https://qualla.com/cheay-areng-dam/ A 108-megawatt dam that was surveyed, protested, blocked and finally shelved - and the eighty metres of saffron cloth that helped stop it.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/d/cheay-areng-dam-wp/w61d-cheay-areng-dam-combined.mp3 4:38 full Central Cardamom Mountains National Park https://qualla.com/central-cardamom-mountains-national-park/ Four thousand square kilometres of Cambodian rainforest that survived because a war made it unreachable, and has been fought over by conservationists, loggers and snare-setters ever since the war ended.

Read more: Central Cardamom Mountains National Park on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/e/central-cardamom-mountains-national-park-wp/w61e-central-cardamom-mountains-national-park-combined.mp3 5:20 full Cardamom and Elephant Mountains https://qualla.com/cardamom-and-elephant-mountains/ Photo credit Bnottelm, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eight Cambodian provinces wrapped around two mountain ranges you can drive around but barely across - a region where the coast reinvented itself in five years and the interior has scarcely changed in fifty.

Read more: Cardamom and Elephant Mountains on Qualla

Image: Bnottelm | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/k/cardamom-and-elephant-mountains-wk/w61k-cardamom-and-elephant-mountains-combined.mp3 5:08 full Cardamom Mountains rain forests https://qualla.com/cardamom-mountains-rain-forests/ Photo credit Every-leaf-that-trembles, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 44,000-square-kilometre ecoregion across Thailand, Cambodia and Phu Quoc island where the rainforest runs from waist-high conifer bog to thirty-metre tropical oak canopy, and where science still has not finished the inventory.

Read more: Cardamom Mountains rain forests on Qualla

Image: Every-leaf-that-trembles | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/k/cardamom-mountains-rain-forests-wp/w61k-cardamom-mountains-rain-forests-combined.mp3 5:35 full Sangkae River https://qualla.com/sangkae-river/ Photo credit 333geek, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 250-kilometre river that falls out of the Cardamom Mountains, built the city of Battambang along the way, and triples in depth every wet season before dispersing into the great lake at one of Asia's richest waterbird colonies.

Read more: Sangkae River on Qualla

Image: 333geek | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/n/sangkae-river-wp/w61n-sangkae-river-combined.mp3 4:53 full Samlout District https://qualla.com/samlout-district/ A remote Battambang district where a dispute over forced rice sales on 2 April 1967 became the opening act of the Cambodian civil war - and which now protects the last rainforest in the northwest.

Read more: Samlout District on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/p/samlout-district-wp/w61p-samlout-district-combined.mp3 5:41 full Pursat province https://qualla.com/pursat-province/ Photo credit Sotheaboth, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cambodia's fourth-largest province, named for a floating banyan, running from Cardamom rainforest down to the Tonlé Sap - and the source of the most sought-after agarwood on earth.

Read more: Pursat province on Qualla

Image: Sotheaboth | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/z/pursat-province-wp/w61z-pursat-province-combined.mp3 5:24 full Pursat https://qualla.com/pursat/ Photo credit LacanAndStockhausen, CC BY-SA 4.0. Guidebooks call Pursat interchangeable with any other Cambodian provincial capital - which is a strange thing to say about a town whose patron spirit threw himself onto poisoned stakes to raise a ghost army.

Read more: Pursat on Qualla

Image: LacanAndStockhausen | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/1/z/pursat-wk/w61z-pursat-combined.mp3 5:08 full Boeng Tonle Chhmar https://qualla.com/boeng-tonle-chhmar/ Photo credit Challiyil Eswaramangalath Vipin from Chalakudy, India, CC BY-SA 2.0. For half the year this Ramsar wetland on the Tonlé Sap is a forest. For the other half you can paddle a boat through the tops of its trees.

Read more: Boeng Tonle Chhmar on Qualla

Image: Challiyil Eswaramangalath Vipin from Chalakudy, India | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/0/boeng-tonle-chhmar-wp/w660-boeng-tonle-chhmar-combined.mp3 5:14 full Tonlé Sap https://qualla.com/tonle-sap/ Photo credit Deror_avi, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twice a year a river in Cambodia stops, turns around, and runs the other way — and a shallow lake swells sixfold to feed a nation.

Read more: Tonlé Sap on Qualla

Image: Deror_avi | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/1/tonle-sap-wp/w661-tonle-sap-combined.mp3 5:33 full Spean Praptos https://qualla.com/spean-praptos/ Photo credit Travelpleb, CC BY-SA 3.0. A twelfth-century laterite bridge that carried the road from Angkor for eight hundred years, until modern trucks finally got too heavy for it.

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Image: Travelpleb | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/4/spean-praptos-wp/w664-spean-praptos-combined.mp3 5:15 full Kampong Thom Museum https://qualla.com/kampong-thom-museum/ One room, a small gallery, and about 150 objects covering thirteen centuries of Khmer art — a provincial museum built the same year the last mines were lifted from the temples it draws on.

Read more: Kampong Thom Museum on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/8/kampong-thom-museum-wp/w668-kampong-thom-museum-combined.mp3 5:41 full Kampong Thom province https://qualla.com/kampong-thom-province/ Photo credit Abhishek Jacob, CC BY-SA 3.0. A province named for a pair of vanished serpents, holding Indochina's last great lowland forest, two cores of the Tonle Sap biosphere, and a roll of names Cambodia would rather not claim.

Read more: Kampong Thom province on Qualla

Image: Abhishek Jacob | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/8/kampong-thom-province-wp/w668-kampong-thom-province-combined.mp3 6:29 full Kampong Thom https://qualla.com/kampong-thom/ A twenty-minute bus stop halfway between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap that turns out to be the doorway to Cambodia's oldest capital and one of its last great grasslands.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/8/kampong-thom-wk/w668-kampong-thom-combined.mp3 5:56 full Prek Sbauv https://qualla.com/prek-sbauv/ Ten houses of fishermen on the Sen River, a kilometre off the highway — and the birthplace of the man whose government killed roughly a quarter of Cambodia.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/8/prek-sbauv-wp/w668-prek-sbauv-combined.mp3 6:03 full Isanapura https://qualla.com/isanapura/ Chinese court historians wrote down a great hall at the heart of a Khmer capital in the 630s; thirteen centuries later, archaeologists dug into a grid traced from the air and found a terrace seventy metres long.

Read more: Isanapura on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/9/isanapura-wp/w669-isanapura-combined.mp3 6:14 full Sambor Prei Kuk https://qualla.com/sambor-prei-kuk/ Photo credit Vassil, Public domain. More than a hundred brick sanctuaries in a Cambodian forest, ten of them eight-sided and found nowhere else on earth - carved with palaces that fly, cratered by American bombs, and mined until 2008.

Read more: Sambor Prei Kuk on Qualla

Image: Vassil | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/9/sambor-prei-kuk-wp/w669-sambor-prei-kuk-combined.mp3 5:33 full Stung Sen Dam https://qualla.com/stung-sen-dam/ A 38-metre dam proposed for the biggest of the Tonle Sap's tributaries, whose official file answers the three most important questions with the words "not available."

Read more: Stung Sen Dam on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/g/stung-sen-dam-wp/w66g-stung-sen-dam-combined.mp3 5:10 full Beng Mealea https://qualla.com/beng-mealea/ Photo credit 松岡明芳, CC BY-SA 3.0. Forty kilometres east of Angkor stands a temple with Angkor Wat's own floor plan and none of its restoration - a collapsed, root-bound ruin that stayed closed to the world until the mines came out of the ground in 2003.

Read more: Beng Mealea on Qualla

Image: 松岡明芳 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/h/beng-mealea-wp/w66h-beng-mealea-combined.mp3 5:31 full Mahendraparvata https://qualla.com/mahendraparvata/ A laser mounted on a helicopter finally drew the map that a century of ground survey could not: a formally planned Khmer grid city of 40 to 50 square kilometres, lying under forest on the Phnom Kulen plateau since the ninth century.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/j/mahendraparvata-wp/w66j-mahendraparvata-combined.mp3 5:50 full Phnom Kulen https://qualla.com/phnom-kulen/ Photo credit Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0. Angkor was quarried out of this mountain and the Khmer Empire was proclaimed on top of it, which is why Cambodians still come up Phnom Kulen in pilgrimage to a reclining Buddha carved from a single sandstone boulder.

Read more: Phnom Kulen on Qualla

Image: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/j/phnom-kulen-wp/w66j-phnom-kulen-combined.mp3 6:22 full Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary https://qualla.com/phnom-thnout-phnom-pok-wildlife-sanctuary/ A couple moved into a patch of northern Cambodian forest in 2014; three years later a government sub-decree turned 42,097 hectares of it into a wildlife sanctuary.

Read more: Phnom Thnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/k/phnom-thnout-phnom-pok-wildlife-sanctuary-wp/w66k-phnom-thnout-phnom-pok-wildlife-sanctuary-combined.mp3 4:44 full Preah Khan Kompong Svay https://qualla.com/preah-khan-kompong-svay/ Photo credit Saxula, CC BY-SA 3.0. The largest thing the Khmer ever built is a hundred kilometres east of Angkor, swallowed by forest, and on most days almost nobody is there.

Read more: Preah Khan Kompong Svay on Qualla

Image: Saxula | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/k/preah-khan-kompong-svay-wp/w66k-preah-khan-kompong-svay-combined.mp3 5:43 full Koh Ker https://qualla.com/koh-ker/ Photo credit PsamatheM, CC BY-SA 4.0. For sixteen years in the tenth century a clearing in the northern Cambodian forest was the capital of the Khmer Empire, and it left behind a seven-tiered pyramid, 184 monuments, and a scattering of stolen masterpieces that the world is still sending home.

Read more: Koh Ker on Qualla

Image: PsamatheM | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/q/koh-ker-wk/w66q-koh-ker-combined.mp3 5:27 full Phnom Tbeng Natural Heritage Park https://qualla.com/phnom-tbeng-natural-heritage-park/ A 600-metre mountain in Preah Vihear province holds the headwaters of the largest river feeding the Tonlé Sap — and some of the last evergreen forest in northern Cambodia.

Read more: Phnom Tbeng Natural Heritage Park on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/t/phnom-tbeng-natural-heritage-park-wp/w66t-phnom-tbeng-natural-heritage-park-combined.mp3 5:26 full Preah Vihear province https://qualla.com/preah-vihear-province/ Photo credit William Brehm, CC BY 2.0. Cambodia's third-largest province holds an abandoned imperial capital, a clifftop temple two nations have argued over for a century, and one of the last great lowland forests in Indochina.

Read more: Preah Vihear province on Qualla

Image: William Brehm | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/6/w/preah-vihear-province-wp/w66w-preah-vihear-province-combined.mp3 6:29 full Phnom Santuk https://qualla.com/phnom-santuk/ Photo credit Dtfman, CC0. A 207-metre rise in the paddy country of Kampong Thom where Buddhas sleep inside the boulders, kings once rehoused relics carried from Angkor, and a doomed 1971 offensive reached its furthest point before it broke.

Read more: Phnom Santuk on Qualla

Image: Dtfman | CC0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/0/phnom-santuk-wp/w670-phnom-santuk-combined.mp3 5:30 full Sambor Dam https://qualla.com/sambor-dam/ The largest dam Cambodia ever designed is, for now, a stretch of open river in Kratie province - shelved in 2020 under a national moratorium that runs to 2030.

Read more: Sambor Dam on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/2/sambor-dam-wp/w672-sambor-dam-combined.mp3 5:12 full Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary https://qualla.com/prey-lang-wildlife-sanctuary/ Photo credit Prey Lang Community Network, CC BY 2.5. The last great lowland evergreen forest on the Indochinese peninsula is named, in Kuy, for the idea that it belongs to everyone - and the Kuy have spent two decades documenting who keeps taking it.

Read more: Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary on Qualla

Image: Prey Lang Community Network | CC BY 2.5

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/4/prey-lang-wildlife-sanctuary-wp/w674-prey-lang-wildlife-sanctuary-combined.mp3 5:43 full Stung Treng Dam https://qualla.com/stung-treng-dam/ A proposed eleven-kilometre wall across the Mekong mainstream that has changed hands, been shelved, and been quietly restudied for nearly two decades without a single cubic metre being poured.

Read more: Stung Treng Dam on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/6/stung-treng-dam-wp/w676-stung-treng-dam-combined.mp3 6:05 full Sambor Wildlife Sanctuary https://qualla.com/sambor-wildlife-sanctuary/ Fifty thousand hectares of Mekong forest and riverbank in Kratie province, protected by a single sub-decree in 2018 - on the same stretch of river where the largest dam ever proposed for the lower mainstream is still drawn on paper.

Read more: Sambor Wildlife Sanctuary on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/7/sambor-wildlife-sanctuary-wp/w677-sambor-wildlife-sanctuary-combined.mp3 5:09 full Chinit River https://qualla.com/chinit-river/ A Kampong Thom river that swings a hundredfold between flood and drought, and whose irrigation works were raised by forced labour under the Khmer Rouge, wrecked by the regime's own soldiers, and rebuilt three decades later.

Read more: Chinit River on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/j/chinit-river-wp/w67j-chinit-river-combined.mp3 6:42 full Stung Treng Bridge https://qualla.com/stung-treng-bridge/ Photo credit Christian Pirkl, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 1,731-metre Chinese-financed span that ended the boat crossing at Stung Treng in 2015 and stitched two marooned districts back onto their own province.

Read more: Stung Treng Bridge on Qualla

Image: Christian Pirkl | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/k/stung-treng-bridge-wp/w67k-stung-treng-bridge-combined.mp3 3:50 full Stung Treng Province https://qualla.com/stung-treng-province/ Photo credit Christian Pirkl, CC BY-SA 4.0. A northeastern Cambodian province that two French administrations swapped in 1904, where the Mekong gathers three great tributaries and the last dolphin of the border pools died in 2022.

Read more: Stung Treng Province on Qualla

Image: Christian Pirkl | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/k/stung-treng-province-wp/w67k-stung-treng-province-combined.mp3 6:16 full Stung Treng https://qualla.com/stung-treng/ A small Cambodian river town that France traded away from Laos in 1904, sitting where three great tributaries and the Mekong gather within a few kilometres of one another.

Read more: Stung Treng on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/k/stung-treng-wk/w67k-stung-treng-combined.mp3 5:40 full Sekong Bridge https://qualla.com/sekong-bridge/ A kilometre of concrete over the Sekong River that completed an international highway running from a Cambodian market town famous for fried tarantulas all the way to Luang Prabang.

Read more: Sekong Bridge on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/m/sekong-bridge-wp/w67m-sekong-bridge-combined.mp3 4:19 full Ban Nakasang https://qualla.com/ban-nakasang/ Photo credit Tango7174, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plain little Lao river town that every visitor to the Four Thousand Islands passes through, and almost nobody remembers.

Read more: Ban Nakasang on Qualla

Image: Tango7174 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/ban-nakasang-wk/w67r-ban-nakasang-combined.mp3 4:37 full Don Det https://qualla.com/don-det/ Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Gorgo at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. A farming island seven kilometres around that became Southeast Asia's most famous place to do nothing, where the boats leave when they are full and the electricity only recently stopped going off.

Read more: Don Det on Qualla

Image: User: (WT-shared) Gorgo at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/don-det-wk/w67r-don-det-combined.mp3 5:11 full Don Khon https://qualla.com/don-khon/ Photo credit Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0. A Mekong island carrying the trackbed of a seven-kilometre colonial portage railway, built so French gunboats could be taken apart, carried past the falls, and put back together on the other side.

Read more: Don Khon on Qualla

Image: Basile Morin | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/don-khon-wk/w67r-don-khon-combined.mp3 6:07 full Don Sahong Dam https://qualla.com/don-sahong-dam/ Of the many channels braiding the Mekong at the Four Thousand Islands, one carried the fish past the Khone Falls year-round. In 2020, a dam closed across it.

Read more: Don Sahong Dam on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/don-sahong-dam-wp/w67r-don-sahong-dam-combined.mp3 5:53 full Don Som https://qualla.com/don-som/ The second largest of the Four Thousand Islands has seven thousand residents, twelve villages and one guesthouse - and once sheltered a French painter who came for three months and stayed forty years.

Read more: Don Som on Qualla

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/don-som-wp/w67r-don-som-combined.mp3 4:28 full Khone Phapheng Falls https://qualla.com/khone-phapheng-falls/ Photo credit Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The widest waterfall on Earth, nearly seven miles across and barely known outside Laos — and the obstacle that ended French hopes of steaming up the Mekong into China.

Read more: Khone Phapheng Falls on Qualla

Image: Basile Morin | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/khone-phapheng-falls-wp/w67r-khone-phapheng-falls-combined.mp3 6:13 full Si Phan Don https://qualla.com/si-phan-don/ Photo credit Tango7174, CC BY-SA 4.0. An archipelago in the middle of a river, where half the islands drown every monsoon and resurface rearranged, and where the last Irrawaddy dolphin in Laos washed ashore in 2022.

Read more: Si Phan Don on Qualla

Image: Tango7174 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/6/7/r/si-phan-don-wk/w67r-si-phan-don-combined.mp3 5:54 full