South-East Asia

Entering Cambodia, we were positively surprised. Though the roads are as bad as in Laos, the whole appearance of the country is somehow more refreshing, green, less dusty and more woken up. Towns seem to be pretty well developed in terms of infrastructure. Most villages are built on wooden columns, as the whole countryside is flooded for at least some centimeters at any time. Besides, having a house on stacks for many seems to be an easy opportunity to get rid of their rubbish by just dropping it under them. Environmental awareness is unfortunately not much an issue yet; in that, Laos is some steps ahead.

All in all, people appear to be pretty optimistic, very friendly and helpful, and we get many shy "Hellos"from the kids on the streets. Coming from Laos, we went to Siem Reap, which is the second largest city of the country and the base for exploring the temples of Angkor Wat, unarguably Cambodias best known sight and United Nations World Heritage site. Siem Reap itself is a beautiful, green and booming city that benefits very much from the thousands of tourists coming to see the temple. Accordingly, there are all kinds of conveniences such as Western style supermarkets, ice-cream shops, good nightlife etc., which we enjoyed very much after the rather simple pleasures of Laos.

Angkor Wat is just a 15 minutes tuktuk ride from the city, and we got up early, hoping to get some good lonely sunrise shots, as did apparently some other hundred people. The entry fee here comes at a rather hefty 20 US$ per day or 60 US$ per week (but this is only for hardcore archeology freaks).

So we showed up there at 5.30, but the sunrise that day wasn't as picturesque as we hoped. Anyway, the main temple is an impressive site, independent of the weather conditions, though the ongoing reconstructions made the scenery somewhat less beautiful. Angkor Wat is actually not one temple, but a whole complex of some 20-30 temples, spread over an area of several square kilometers, so we took a tour that brought us to 5 or 6 sites, which differ by style and condition, depending on when they were erected. Even with a guidebook, it is almost impossible to get through the dynasties of Khmer kings who build the temples - flowery names like Jayavarman, Srindravarman, Suryavarman, Dharanindravarman, and then there were at least 5-7 of each of these -varmans...Impossible to remember...

There are a remarkable number of street vendors at each of the sites, and what starts rather pleasant with some cute kids surrounding you and asking to buy cold drinks, friendship bracelets or silk scarves pretty quick gets an annoyance. After all, you can only buy something and not everything, so at some point, you tell the kids "No, maybe later." or "Thanks, I am not thirsty yet.". Don't you dare let them see you 30 minutes later with some drink or item you bought elsewhere. They chase you, tell you that you lied to them and are a greedy foreigner. They speak very good English, and I couldn't have come up with some of the insulting phrases throw at us. They should actually be at school, but local authorities don't seem to enforce that too much, and often, the kids are the main source of income for their families. It is questionable whether you really help them by buying, or just cement and help to maintain a system of child exploitation, but as a softhearted person with a social conscience you are morally caught between a rock and a hard place here.