Cambodia Summary and Review with a little history

Cambodia was our first true 3rd world country to visit... ever.  We've both been to "developing countries" like China and Mexico but had not yet experienced the 3rd world.  Cambodia was a great first one.  Note that all of our opinions are based on one city, Siem Reap, so this blog may not hold up to the country as a whole.  

It is truly a beautiful place.  Stepping off the airplane at sunset after leaving polluted and crowded China was an amazing feeling.  We took deep breaths of clean, humid air, and walked backwards into the airport as not to miss the amazing sunset we were greeted with.

Getting around Siem Reap couldn't be easier since hiring a tuk tuk driver through your hotel/hostel was almost expected and very cheap ($9 - $15 per day for the whole day).  For those who don't know what a tuk tuk is, there's a photo below.  It's powered by a motorcycle with a trailer attached for the riders. It's basically a motorized rickshaw.  They don't go very fast, but they are comfortable, cheap, provides a nice breeze in the heat, and they get you where you are going.

We were able to have the same tuk tuk driver throughout our entire stay in Siem Reap. His name is Mr. Vanna and we have his business card if you're ever in Siem Reap and are looking for a driver! He was the nicest driver always having cold water available, waiting for us at each site for as long as we needed, willing to detour to the ATM, bought us pineapple to cool off with (very sour, not like US pineapple), and when it downpoured he prepped our tuk tuk so we did not get wet (but he certainly did!).

We opted to stay at a hostel in Cambodia.  It's a popular place for backpackers - a backpacker's paradise if you will.  After staying in nice, standard hotels for the past 3 weeks, it was fun to have a community-like place to call home for 3 nights.  If you're ever looking to visit, we highly recommend where we stayed: The Golden Temple Villa http://www.goldentemplevilla.com/.  Our hostel was pretty well known amoung the backpacking group so we were glad we booked it in advance.  We actually ran into one of Chris' classmates from Columbia Business School, Jill, at our hostel's restaurant!  She had tried to stay there but the hostel was booked up.  We had dinner together and enjoyed talking about our travels to China as she had visited there before.

Everything in Cambodia is cheap and they take USD.  Our hostel was $18 a night for the deluxe private room with private bath and meals were under $5.  The reason everything is cheap, however, is because of the extreme poverty that comes with 3rd world countries.  For one, people are constantly trying to sell you items or just begging for money.  Typically parents send their kids out to do the task as they are harder to say "no" to.   We were aware this was the case and not wanting to give in and buy a cheap magnet but not wanting to ignore the kids, we spoke to them instead.  We asked them very simple questions as their English didn't go beyond "everything one dollar!"  We asked their name, asked if they knew what color their shirt was, played simple math games with them. (For example, if I get 2 magnets for $1, how much is 10 magnets?)  The kids were either too confused or distracted to sell to us or they seemed to enjoy the attention. We even made a few girls blush after telling them they were pretty.

This aspect of Cambodia (and other 3rd world countries) is something you have to prepare yourself for and understand in advance you can't change the country during your trip.

Not only was this our first 3rd world country, it was our first true jungle experience.  We've both been to Louisana and Florida - America's swap lands - but they're no jungle.  Despite the intense heat and humidity, we wore pants and long sleeved shirts to avoid sunburns and bug bites.  Salamanders were everywhere and a few frogs hung outside our hostel.

Our Review:
All in all, we would highly recommend anyone with an interest in seeing these ruins in the jungle (and you really should be interested as they are incredible) to go to Siem Reap.  We, city folk, both really enjoyed our time there but found 2-3 days is the right amount of time to stay.  There are so many temples that it doesn't take long before you can't tell them apart, and we soon grew tired of seeing temple after temple. The heat and humidity also takes its toll after a while.

Cambodia History:
We wanted to end this post on a final history lesson we learned while we were there about the history of Cambodia that our modern society remembers more vividly.  During the mid-1970's the communist party in Cambodia (also known as the Khmer Rouge) overthrew the the government and took control of the country.  Pol Pot, the leader of this group, hoping to install a utopian communist state moved the entire population of about 7.5 million people out of the cities and into the countryside to become rice farmers.  Over the next 5 years, up to 3 million people (almost half of the total population) died of starvation, disease and government executions.  This movement was eventually destroyed by invading forces from Vietnam.

In addition to the human toll, the temples we visited suffered during this period as well.  The French had been working to restore much of the delapidated structures since the early 1900's and, to do so, had meticulously deconstructed the buildings and created detailed plans on how to reconstruct them using the same stones.  Sadly, almost all of these documents were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge's reign, and now many of the structures are laid out in giant fields of stones waiting to be reassembled.  It is, effectively, the world's largest and most complex jigsaw puzzle, and a lasting reminder of the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge.

Despite this brutal and sad period in Cambodian history, Cambodians today are willing to discuss this period as they have tried to move passed and beyond their history.