An Ascendant in Scorpio: Dark Tourism in the Kingdom of Cambodia, a Travelogue

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.25.1.2026.4280

Keywords:

magical realism, travelogue, dark tourism, Skuon Cambodia, fried tarantulas, Canva AI image generation, tropical tourism

Abstract

An eight-legged dark tourist with a freshly starched pith helmet, Sydney’s travels in Cambodia take him to the small town of Skuon, where people snack on fried tarantulas. The trip to Skuon, however, becomes more than just a tropical dark tourist tick box; instead, transforming into a sweaty pilgrimage into the crevices of Sydney’s ravaged psyche. During Syd’s journey, he must embrace his fears and ingest the beast within or forever wallow in the purgatory of his shadow self and its eternal torments. Caught in a web of vampiric arachnids, he must be careful not to become prey, tempted by the sordid touristic pleasures of the war-torn Kingdom. This travelogue, of the psyche and Cambodia, influenced by the genre of magical realism, is accompanied by images generated by Canva AI.

Author Biography

Brenton Rossow, Edith Cowan University, Australia

Brenton Rossow is an interdisciplinary artist from Western Australia. His films include Shanghainese Parklife: Cultivating the Taoist body (2017), Clouds and 4 cigarettes (2017), and Lindsay’s Story (2022). Brenton has been involved in creative projects, such as the Rockingham Noongar Stories Project 2019, the West Australian Museum 2019 Migrant Stories Project, and the Moorditj Footprints project 2020-present. His research interests include Taoism, haiku, Chinese cinema, experimental filmmaking, animation, junk art & puzzle films. He can be contacted at b.rossow@ecu.edu.au

References

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Published

2026-03-04

How to Cite

Rossow, B. (2026). An Ascendant in Scorpio: Dark Tourism in the Kingdom of Cambodia, a Travelogue. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 25(1), 41–60. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.25.1.2026.4280

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2026): Tourisms’ Tristes Tropiques: Literary Travels

Section

Dystopian Fiction and Travelogues

License

Copyright (c) 2026 CC-BY

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