For me to try to document just the events of the last few days would require pages and pages and pages. And frankly, there’s a lot of exciting Cambodia out there, and I’m disinclined to while away my hours in an internet cafe. Ask me next time you see me and I’ll fill in the details.
To be short: in terms of development, Cambodia is to Thailand as Thailand is to the United States. And that’s not an exaggeration. This reality was driven home by the nine hours of hellish bus ride it took to pass from the Thai border at Poipet to Siem Reap. Part of the “road” had been paved at one point in time, but thirty years of tanks and landmines have collected their toll, leaving potholes the size of cars at such a frequency that we seldom moved faster than even a crawl. The road was only paved for the first four hours, and then became dirt, which was equally innavigable. Imagine the worst dirt road you’ve ever driven down, sustained for five hours.
The belabor the poor quality of the road only to stress that, with the exception of a small handful of cities, Cambodia isn’t a lesser-developed nation: it’s an undeveloped nation. 80% of Cambodians (of which there are currently about 12 million) are farmers– subsistance farmers. The villages we past were generally dark, save for small fires the front yard and the occasional glow of a television seen through the “walls” of the houses. No lights or running water, but televisions. Third world contradictions of development…
Needless to say, we did eventually arrive (just after midnight, having set out at 2:00PM), and were well rewarded. Thursday was spent seeing the Land Mine Museum (http://www.akiramineaction.com/) and the state ran war museum. At the war museum, my “tour” was led by a local university student named Kohn who lost his parents and his arm to a landmine. It’s difficult for him to pay for his education because employers are generally unwilling to employ “cripples,” but he volunteers at the war museum giving tours anyway.
Thursday night we headed out to Angkor Wat for the sunset:
Ar. And that’s where I’m going to stop for now, because I’m starving and this keyboard sucks. More later.
