Cambodia is quite a place. With their country having been in chaos and war up until around 1990, they have only been in the “rebuilding” stage for the last 20 years. You would never know this if you went to visit Angkor Wat in Siem Reap and took off again as is often the case. It takes a bit more exploring to see the real countryside and see how people live. Our travel bible, the Lonely Planet (LP), bravely made their first trip to Cambodia in 1989 and found it quite difficult of course to document much for travel let alone travel safely. They have now been back many times and update the book as recently as 2008. In each of their books they have a section at the front considered the must see “highlights” of the country. There are usually 15+ areas they mention and rave about. In the Cambodia book there are 9 highlights with three of them being in one city, Battambang (more on that later), and all but one of the other 6 were about Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor. So basically, there is not much to see here. As you read earlier, we happily spent five days in Siem Reap enjoying the temples. We then took the LP’s much advised boat trip to a town called Battambang. This of course took us the maximum time described in the book of 8 hours. We did however see a lot! We passed by floating village after floating village with floating houses, gardens, shops, petrol stands, hair dressers, schools with gyms for the kids to run around on, and much more. Most houses were tiny but managed to fit the essentials and a TV of course. These people live on the river because that is where they make their living catching fish and there is no land nearby to settle on, only swamp. So they have adapted rather than “commute” to the river.
Battambang is known for its beautiful old French buildings and a bamboo railroad. Due to the poverty of the country, the French buildings still remain and have not been torn down to make bigger fancier buildings. They were nice, but not 8 hours on a hot, sunny, loud boat nice. The other attraction to the town was the bamboo railway which was also quite interesting. It was like a rollercoaster but without hills or any safety precautions and used to be used as the main transportation method but now just a tourist trap. We hauled along powered by a motor on a flat rectangular car weaved from bamboo with no sides at a rapid speed until we approached another car going the opposite direction. The car with the fewest passengers had to unload, disassemble, let the other car pass, and reassemble. We “won” 5/7 of our “battles” as we liked to call them but mostly because we had another car behind us and two cars beat one! If you happen to be in Battambang Cambodia, check them out, but don't go too far out of your way to get there!
One day was more than enough in Battambang so we boarded our bus to Phnom Penh. On Victoria’s first visit to Cambodia with her family in 2006, they took the “easy way out” and went to the temples at Angkor and that was it. With her study abroad group later that year they went to Phnom Penh where they visited the Khmer Rouge killing fields and the excruciating Khmer Rouge museum. Walking the streets of Phnom Penh was depressing and heartbreaking; there were kids begging everywhere, people missing limb begging, and disastrous infrastructure. There was such poverty right next to huge houses with guards and expensive cars, it was a bit hard to take. In the 5 years that have passed, Phnom Penh has blossomed so to speak. They have streets that can be driven on, traffic lights, sidewalks (you can’t actually walk on them though because cars and motorbikes use them for parking), nice parks and happy looking people out enjoying them. It was a complete 180. A place you might actually want to spend some time in. With a country that is still so much in the recovery phase, 5 years can make a huge difference.
Next we did take a few days to go out to the coast and enjoy the beach and see the mangroves. It was very relaxing and the beaches were pristine. We took a boat from our small haven called the Oasis Resort, owned by a Westerner, and rode 2.5 hours to a beach that was like no other we will probably ever see again. Clear clean water (you could see each grain of sand under about 6 feet of water) with not a spec of trash or pollution or another person. It was paradise, but bet that in a few years it will be bought up and developed. Right next to the Thai border it is bound to be exploited, it’s just a matter of time. Our other day on the water involved a trek with a deaf Khmer guide and a boat driver who had previously been a Khmer Rouge soldier. We were quite a team! Our "trail" we later found out was discovered and made in the last two weeks, so trail is a generous word. When we finally made it, our trek was well worth the effort. We got to a waterfall with beautiful clean water and deep swimming holes with no one else around of course. Yet again another day in paradise.
Our overall impression of Cambodia was sad but hopeful. During the Khmer Rouge their educated population of our parents generation who would be running the country now, got wiped out so they really were left with very little brainpower. They are also plagued by poverty and of course landmines. Unlike their neighbor Laos who is also struggling, Cambodia has so many NGOs helping to rebuild. There are lots of NGOs to give single women and children skills to make money and support themselves and others that help land mine victims. We will be curious to see where Cambodia is in another 5-10 years.
Cambodia by the numbers...
Hours spend traveling on bus/boat: 26
Number of Prius seen: 8
Number of Hummers seen: more than the number of Prius...
Cost of a new Lexus SUV: $140,000
Salary of a starting teacher per month: $45
Number of landmines cleared by Aki Ra, found of the Cambodian Land Mine Museum: 50,000
Estimated number of lands mines still in Cambodia: 5 to 6 million
On to Vietnam...
T&V
