ញ៉ាំបាយហើយនៅ? (nyam bai haoy nov?) is not really about food — it is Cambodia’s everyday “How’s it going?”, rooted in generations for whom a full stomach was the truest measure of well-being. Answer nyam haoy (“already eaten”) unless you actually want lunch — nov tei (“not yet”) is often taken as accepting an invitation you didn’t know you’d received.

Khmer has no single reply to thanks. Cambodians answer with អត់អីទេ (ot ei tei) or មិនអីទេ (min ei tei) — both meaning “it’s nothing”. And សូមទោស does double duty: it is your apology and your “excuse me” for squeezing past someone in a crowded market. Say it with a small dip of the head and it never sounds abrupt.

Cambodian numbers are the hardest thing on this page to hear at speed, and every price in the country is negotiable in writing. Carrying a small notebook — or handing over your phone’s calculator — turns a failed exchange into a friendly one in two seconds. Sellers do this with each other constantly; it is not a foreigner’s crutch, it is normal practice.

Grumbling about the heat is a social ritual, not a conversation about meteorology. A well-timed ក្ដៅណាស់! to a stranger waiting out a downpour with you will get a laugh and often a chair. Note also that Cambodians divide the year into hot, rainy and a brief, treasured cool season around December — mention preferring the cool one and you will get instant agreement.

Khmer has its own numerals — ១ ២ ៣ ៤ ៥ ៦ ៧ ៨ ៩ ០ — and they appear on market price tags, bus tickets, house numbers and government forms, often instead of Western digits. Ten minutes spent memorising the shapes will save you a hundred confused transactions. Note that ៥ (5) and ៨ (8) are the two most commonly misread by beginners.

The strongest card you hold is not haggling — it is volume. Asking a driver to wait and bring you back (teuv mok vinh phong) often costs barely more than the one-way fare, because he keeps the fare instead of hunting a new passenger. Do this twice with the same driver and you have a regular: save his number, and you will never negotiate again.

Apps such as PassApp, Grab and TADA fix the fare in advance, which quietly ends the whole negotiation game — and they are usually cheaper than a street tuk-tuk for a foreigner. Keep your phone in Khmer-friendly mode: drivers will phone rather than message, and they will speak fast. The four phrases above cover ninety per cent of those calls.

Many rental shops ask for your passport as security. Offer a photocopy plus a deposit instead — reputable shops accept this, and recovering a held passport during a dispute is genuinely difficult. Photograph the bike from all four sides before you ride off, scratches included, and check that the shop provides a helmet: police fine riders without one, and foreigners are stopped far more often.

Popular routes — Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Battambang — sell out on weekends and vanish entirely around Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben, when the whole country travels home at once. Buy a day ahead, arrive thirty minutes early, and keep your ticket visible: seats are assigned but rarely enforced, and the polite passenger who shows up last stands.

Every intercity bus has a young assistant who loads luggage, collects tickets and shouts the stops. He is the person to ask, not the driver. Learn his job title — ជំនួយការ (chum-nuoy-kaa) — or simply catch his eye with bong. Tell him your destination when you board and he will make sure you are off the bus at the right place.

Island and river services run to the weather and the number of passengers, not to the timetable painted on the jetty. Before you board anything, ask touk chong-kraoy tro-lop maong pon-man? — “what time is the last boat back?” — and then take the one before it. In the rainy season a cancelled afternoon crossing can strand you overnight, and the guesthouses know it.

Visa-on-arrival is paid in US dollars, in cash, and the counter rarely gives change gracefully. Bring the exact amount plus a passport photo, and keep small notes separate from large ones. If anyone at the airport asks for an extra “processing fee” beyond the posted price, a calm som toh, khnyom min yul tei — “sorry, I don’t understand” — with a smile is remarkably effective.

A Khmer meal is shared: two or three dishes land in the middle with a communal bowl of rice, and everybody takes small amounts onto their own plate. Ordering one dish each, Western style, produces a strange table. Ask muk naa chhngañ? — “which dish is delicious?” — and let the waiter build the meal. You will eat better and spend less.

Cambodian coffee arrives with a thick layer of condensed milk at the bottom and sugar on top of that. If you want it plain, say so before the glass is built — afterwards nothing can be done. Ask for កាហ្វេខ្មៅ (kaa-fei khmav), “black coffee”, and add kom dak sko. Ice in reputable shops is factory-made and safe; the cylindrical kind with a hole through the middle is the one to trust.

Khmer cooking is built to be adjusted by the eater, which is why every table carries chilli, fish sauce, sugar, lime and pepper. Ordering mild and then seasoning your own bowl is completely normal and slightly insults nobody. The famous exception is ទឹកត្រី (tuk-trei, fermented fish sauce) — it is already inside almost every dish, so a genuine fish allergy needs stating clearly and early.

The safest stall is the busiest one — high turnover means nothing sits warm for hours. Look for a crowd of Cambodians rather than a sign in English, and eat where the cooking happens in front of you. Som douch koat — “the same as him” — is the single most useful sentence at a stall, and it usually gets you the thing the regulars actually come for.

Cambodia runs on two currencies at once. You pay in US dollars and receive change under one dollar in riel, at a fixed rate of about 4,000 riel to the dollar. So a $3.50 bill settled with a $5 note comes back as one dollar and 2,000 riel. Refuse torn or heavily marked dollar notes — shops will refuse them from you later.

Categories travel badly; ingredients do not. “Vegetarian” may still arrive with chicken stock or a spoon of fish sauce, because those are seasonings rather than meat in the local sense. Say instead: no pork, no chicken, no fish, no fish sauce — four short phrases, listed one by one. For a serious allergy, have a Cambodian friend write it in Khmer on a card and show that; it removes every gap in pronunciation.

Type your address in Khmer script into your phone’s notes once, with the nearest landmark, and paste it into every delivery order afterwards. Riders navigate by landmark plus phone call, not by GPS pin — pins in Phnom Penh are frequently thirty metres and one alley wrong. Adding nov choab … (“next to …”) to the order note saves the call altogether.

Say khnyom ket sen — “let me think about it” — and start walking. If your price was workable you will be called back within five steps; if you are not called back, it genuinely was too low. This is understood as part of the game by both sides. What is not acceptable is bargaining hard and then not buying: settle a price only on something you actually intend to take.

Handing a $50 note to a market seller for a $2 purchase will stop the transaction entirely — nobody at street level holds that much change, and you will be sent to break it yourself. Keep ones, fives and riel notes in a separate pocket. In supermarkets and petrol stations, large notes are fine; everywhere else, the small money is what makes you easy to serve.

Tailoring is cheap and everywhere. A market shirt that almost fits can be taken in for a dollar or two by the ជាងកាត់ដេរ (chieng kat-dei, tailor) sitting three stalls away — often on the spot. This is why Cambodians buy clothes that are slightly loose rather than slightly tight, and why thom chieng nih bon-tech is the more useful of the two size phrases above.

Power cuts are common and the cold chain is not always unbroken, so milk, yoghurt and imported cheese deserve a glance at the date — ផុតកំណត់ (phot kom-not), “expiry”. Minimart prices are fixed and marked, so no bargaining happens here; that is precisely what makes them a comfortable place to practise your Khmer without any money riding on the outcome.

Cambodian pharmacies often dispense loose tablets in a small plastic bag with the dosage written on it, and antibiotics are sold without a prescription. Ask for the original box so you can read the drug name and strength — som yok bratab phong, “the packet too, please”. If symptoms last more than three days, or involve a high fever, go to a clinic rather than back to the pharmacy: dengue is common and needs a blood test.

The rate is pegged at roughly 4,000 riel to one dollar and barely moves, so the arithmetic is easy: 2,000 riel is fifty cents, 10,000 riel is $2.50. Dollars handle the large amounts, riel handles everything under a dollar — there are no US coins in circulation at all. Torn or ink-marked dollar bills are routinely refused, so inspect the notes you are given before you walk away.

Most Cambodian ATMs let you choose the currency. Take dollars — riel withdrawals come out in large notes that small shops cannot break. Machines also charge a flat fee of around $4 to $5 per withdrawal regardless of amount, so take out more, less often. Choose an ATM inside a bank branch during opening hours: if it eats your card at 9 p.m. on a Friday, nobody can open it until Monday.

SIM registration is legally tied to a passport, and a card sold pre-registered under a stranger’s name can be cut off without warning. Go to a branded Smart, Cellcard or Metfone shop, hand over your passport, and have them register it to you. Data is extremely cheap by international standards — a few dollars buys a generous monthly package — and coverage is good in towns, patchy on rural roads.

There is no legal right to return goods you simply changed your mind about, and most small shops operate on “sold is sold”. So test everything at the counter: plug in the charger, switch on the fan, check both shoes, unfold the whole garment. Electronics from proper stores carry a genuine ធានា (thie-nie, guarantee) — keep that slip somewhere safe, because without it repairs are charged in full.

Inspecting the room before agreeing is completely normal and nobody is offended by it — guesthouses expect it. Check three things: that the air conditioning actually blows cold, that hot water reaches the shower, and that the window does not open onto a karaoke bar. Rooms on the same floor at the same price often differ enormously, and asking to see a second one usually gets you the better of the two.

Saying nothing and then complaining at checkout gets you nowhere; reporting a fault immediately almost always gets it fixed or gets you moved. Keep the tone light — a problem raised with a smile is a favour asked, and a favour asked is a favour granted. Power cuts are frequent in the provinces, so a guesthouse with a ម៉ាស៊ីនភ្លើង (maa-sin phleung, generator) is worth a dollar or two more per night.

Nearly every guesthouse will hold your bag for the day after checkout at no charge, which turns an awkward afternoon before a night bus into a free one. Ask with phnhaeu kaa-boub tuk baan tei? and take anything valuable with you. Tipping is not expected in Cambodian hotels, but leaving a couple of dollars for the cleaner is quietly appreciated and very unusual.

Landlords in Cambodia commonly resell electricity at well above the state rate, and with air conditioning running you can add a hundred dollars a month without noticing. Always ask the price per unit and compare it against the official EDC tariff before signing. Two months’ deposit is standard, and getting it back at the end depends almost entirely on the relationship you build — so photograph the whole flat on the day you move in.

Take a picture of the electricity meter on the day you move in and on the first of every month. It costs ten seconds and settles every billing dispute instantly, because you can show the reading rather than argue about it. Keep a torch and a power bank charged: cuts of two or three hours are ordinary, especially in the hot season when the whole city runs its air conditioning at once.

Once a machine is in pieces on your floor your negotiating position has gone. Ask chuoh-chul oh pon-man? at the door, and ask again if he discovers a second fault. Most repairmen are found by asking your neighbours rather than searching online — the one who fixed the flat downstairs will come faster, charge the local rate and care about his reputation on your street.

Laundry shops wash several households together, so socks and single shirts do migrate. Count the items as you hand them over — the staff will happily count with you, and it is entirely normal — then count them again on collection. In the rainy season, clothes may come back not quite dry and smelling of it; a shop with a proper ម៉ាស៊ីនសម្ងួត (maa-sin som-nguot, dryer) is worth walking an extra street for.

Dengue is common across Cambodia and its early signs look exactly like flu: high fever, headache behind the eyes, deep muscle ache. If a fever lasts more than two days, go to a clinic and ask for a blood test rather than taking more paracetamol — and avoid ibuprofen or aspirin, which are dangerous in dengue. Say khnyom chong pinet chhiem: “I want a blood test.”

Find out today — before you need it — which clinic in your town handles foreigners, and save the number. In Phnom Penh and Siem Reap there are international clinics with English-speaking doctors; in the provinces, standards vary a great deal and serious cases are often evacuated to the capital or to Bangkok. If you are staying long term, medical insurance that covers evacuation is the single most valuable thing you can buy.

Cambodia has a large number of well-trained dentists, many educated abroad, and prices are a fraction of Western ones — a cleaning costs a few dollars, a filling perhaps twenty. Foreigners living here often schedule dental work deliberately during their stay. Choose a clinic that shows you sterile packaging opened in front of you, and ask what the total will be before treatment starts, not after.

Antibiotics are sold freely here and are often handed out for ordinary colds, which they do nothing for. If you are genuinely prescribed a course, finish all of it even once you feel well — stopping early is how resistant infections are bred, and Southeast Asia already has a serious problem with them. Also check every packet’s expiry date at the counter: stock rotation in small pharmacies is not always careful.

Ambulance coverage is limited and slow outside the capital, and in a real emergency Cambodians drive the patient in themselves — by car, by tuk-tuk, by motorbike. Do the same rather than waiting. Keep three things written in Khmer in your wallet or phone: your blood type, any allergy, and the name of the nearest hospital. The national emergency numbers are 119 for ambulance, 117 for police and 118 for fire.

The commonest crime against foreigners in Phnom Penh is a bag pulled from a passing motorbike, which can drag you into the road. Carry bags on the side away from traffic, or across your body under an arm, and never hold a phone loosely at the kerb. If it happens, let go — a bag is replaceable. Report it the same day; the station will write a report, sometimes for a small unofficial fee, and insurers require it.

Cambodia has a network of training centres employing blind and partially sighted therapists, and the standard of traditional Khmer massage there is generally excellent — firm, technical, and priced at a few dollars an hour. Seeing Hands is the best known. A tip of a dollar or two is genuinely appreciated. Note that Khmer massage involves stretching and deep pressure rather than oil and gliding; thnom-thnom is not a sign of weakness, it is useful information.

Cambodians train early and late, never in the middle of the day — by ten in the morning the heat makes outdoor exercise genuinely risky. Head to any riverside or public park at around six in the evening and you will find free open-air aerobics classes, dozens of people following an instructor with a speaker, for a few hundred riel or nothing at all. It is the friendliest possible way to practise both your fitness and your Khmer.