More on Cambodia

It feels like we left Cambodia such a long time ago. We are now in Chiang Mai and I finally have access to the internet (or finally have time to sit down and write for a few minutes).

Cambodia was amazing. Such an interesting place but I can't help but feel like Siem Reap is a touristy town. It's a pretty nice place. Once you leave the city though you realize just how poor the country actually is.

The first day in Cambodia we drove down to the floating village on the nearby lake. I can't quite seem to put into words what we saw - I also didn't take too many pictures because I didn't think it was very appropriate (and in many cases it seemed like the children were posing for me, waiting for me to take a picture so that they could ask me for money afterwards.) The road leading up to the floating village was lined with one-room houses on stilts (we were told that people would relocate their houses depending on the water level), community wells every few hundred meters and kids everywhere...

Our taxi drivers (we had two, we also had two tuk-tuk drivers) were really quite interesting to talk to. They were both very well-spoken in English and really seemed to want to educate us about what was happening in their country, the history, the war and the current politics. It was very interesting to get their perspective on things and really gave us a few things to think about.

We visited Angkor Wat for two days and by the end of the second day I felt like I was fading quickly (we made the mistake of staying outside in the midday heat and by 2pm I felt quite ill.)

On our second day of visiting the temples we drove about 40 kilometers away from Siem Reap to see a temple. The drive was quite nice (though there was a very close call with a truck) and really gave us a feeling for what the rural side of Cambodia is like. It was really nice - in some ways it reminded me a lot of the villages we drove through in Mexico when I was traveling with my parents a few years ago. Actually, I kept thinking how much I think my parents would probably really like Cambodia.

Anyway. I really liked the Cambodia leg of our trip. I think Ryan did too. It was a really refreshing change from what I've been experiencing in Thailand.

We're now back in Thailand and I feel like things are actually starting to make a lot of sense here. This country seems so much more wealthy in comparison.

I continue to be surprised at how there are many similarities in Thai and Cambodian culture to Indian culture. From the similarities in musics, food, dance and even religion... it seems so strange to me - I'll write more about this at some point hopefully.

I've overstayed my welcome using the free internet in the hotel lobby. I'll hopefully write some more in the next day or so.