Cambodia Email

Cambodia
Just a day away from leaving this country and I realized I have seen NOTHING of it, just the two major points of Phenom Pehn and Seam Reap (Angkor Wat). It is sad to have moved so quickly through this area for there is tons of beautiful scenery and surprisingly some very interesting food to get involved with. My trip pushes me on and after an emotional twist with potentially landing an amazing job in Sydney, I was driven to keep moving, pushing into Vietnam. This is NOT to say that I didn’t get a chance to experience Cambodia, being here for 15 days has opened my eyes to the atrocities that plagued this country just 30 years ago, and it is apparent the scar that it has left on the social structure of the country today. Not to get historical on you…. But just 30 years ago a mass genocide of over 2million people were exterminated , the goal was to eliminate the upper class (educated people) and start the country all over from scratch. An extreme case of Marxism (thanks Sociology degree!); which clearly does not work when you have to kill off ½ your population. The out come, besides the killing millions, was an uneducated, torn, poor, emotionally, and physically scared country. After visiting 2 of it’s 3 neighbouring countries (Thailand and Laos), it is clear how this has affected it’s people, money is tighter, smiles are fewer, and life is still a bit tougher. It’s a sad reality.
The levels of prosperity is the most apparent in cambodia, where you can see BMW's, Lexus SUV's, whipping down the steet in Phenom Phen, and a mile away have litteraly a couple thousand people living in the city dump. I got a chance to do some charity and go to feed and visit 300+ children who were living there, the program was led by a British man who really is a saint. Spending an afternoon at the dump was just as touching as paying my respects to the millions lost to the genocide at the S-21 museum and the “killing fields” where mass graves have been dug up, revealing holes scattered across the earth, where thousands once lay…. That was a heavy day.
On a less MORBID topic, Angkor Wat was a beautiful assembly of temples and ancient architecture, being the cheap bastard I am, only paid for the $20usd for a day instead of the $40 for 3 days. Not being a person turned on by temples, I found the day to be plenty, but could have easily taken my time and spread it out through 3, that would have been fantastic. Sun Rise on Angkor Wat was probably one of the best I have ever seen in my life.
I travelled a bit to quickly through this country to really get into the fabric of things, I would have loved to get off the beaten path, head down to the ocean, and continue to eat Khmer food, but I have a serious urge to move forwards.