Cambodia

Am back from a 5 day trip (effectively 3 days though) to Cambodia, namely Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. After 10 years of friendship and a few 'disrupted' trips, BFF Dionis and I finally embarked on a trip together with her BF Alex. Why do I say disrupted trips? Coz' the first time round, MTLV wanted to go on a cruise together after O'Levels however the cruise coy told us 4 of us were underaged and we'll need an accompanying 'adult'. Next up, after A levels, Dionis and I wanted to go Taipei but the floods decided to pay an untimely visit to TP. Then when both of us were in US, we were supposed to meet in CedarPoint and drive down to Chicago but the poor girl got very sick.

Anyway back to THE trip...

Siem Reap was different from Phnom Penh as I suppose it has more tourists buzzing in there since the world's largest temple Angkor Wat and iconic Ta Prohm (remember temple featured in Tomb Raider?) were embedded within. Also visited Angkor Tom where I found Bayon interesting with a face carved into each of its towers. It's amazing how the people in the past constructed all these temples without the use of technology, especially when there's gazillion details of bas reliefs and inscriptions to be done too. Gotta give them several thumbs up for their hard work. However, I suppose behind all these magnificence, there were lives being taken too... like in the stories of the building of Great Wall of China and the great pyramids of Egypt.

During the trip, I was also present to what the Cambodians and even the children had to do for survival. It surprised me that many of them, especially those who were in retail knew how to speak English and some of them were even trilingual. Besides Khmer and English, they knew another language like Japanese or Mandarin. I must say that some of the kids really know how to persuade and sell. To add, we were also impressed by a particular tuktuk driver, who drove us around the temples in Siem Reap. He had a business strategy. He made a personalized folder containing maps of iconic places to show tourists how they can plan their trips. And what was really outstanding was that he showed us a book of handwritten testimonials he got from his previous clients.

In general, Cambodia is unlike any places I've visited which includes US, Aussie, HK, Taipei, Malaysia, Thailand. In my opinion, even Malaysia and Thailand are more developed. Through this trip and some of my other trips, I learn to appreciate what I have back home in Singapore.


A Video of the Temples of Angkor: