Khmer Nights was an online news, sports and entertainment magazine that I set up in 2021 and survived in one way shape, or form for around 3 years.
Alas the site has now gone save this forwarder, much of the transferred old content, as well as the Facebook page. With this in mind I have decided to give the little project its own footnote to history.
Founding of Khmer Nights
During Covid-19 I moved to Phnom Penh and tried to continue keeping Young Pioneer Tours going. Alas it was not a great time to be a travel agent, so I once again got involved in journalism.
This initially had me working as a business writer at Khmer Times the national newspaper of Cambodia. You can read my stuff here. During this time a few of us thought that we could make something a bit more fun, while also suffering less than we were at Khmer Times.
Khmer Nights was duly born and continued as did writing for NK News and Cambodia Investment Review, as well as a recovering Young Pioneer Tours.
The article that really got us pumping was about getting McDonalds delivered within Cambodia, which might sound weird, expert for the fact that there is no McDonald’s in Cambodia.
The Khmer Nights Heyday
For a long time Khmer Nights was genuinely popular, with us being the only publication really dealing with entertainment, as well as my other key love, Cambodian football. And we became well known for this, with myself anyway regularly getting good dinners, invites to events, as well as top interviews within the football world.
And we even had people interested in investing, but alas the success would only last for so long. Why did it all go wrong? For starters there was too much infighting, as well as in my opinion at least too many people wanting to bosses without either putting in the work, or equally as importantly the cash.
Towards the end it continued as a concern of sorts, with a high Domain Authority and good keyword rankings, but it would only survive until other things came along.
Where is Khmer Nights now?
As well as of course existing on our hearts it has largely been either replaced or will be replaced by other publications. Most of the content has since been moved to Cambodia Lifestyle, which initially at least was supposed to be a bit more like Khmer Nights, but is now more in the touristic realm.
Food wise my reviews now largely come as part of the new all improved Street Food Guy. And the rest?
Well these are largely works in progress, but I do want to get Cambodia Sports Review back up and running, as well as a few newer and more niche sites. These include the Cambodian Travel Guide, as well as a Khmer Rouge website.
The former is fairly self-explanatory, while the later will replace a former project I had done and be an avenue for me to write about my deep interest in Pol Pot, Democratic Kampuchea and the modern history of Cambodia.
Like Khmer Nights some of these will have partners, but for the most part I am confident in the new ventures success because they are far less reliant on other people.
They will all though have in part some of the legacy of Khmer Nights and the contacts and indeed experiences it brought me. And while technically it was a filature, hopefully its legacy will be my success in these other projects.