The potential "Travel Guide" ensuing from our three months Trip - Part 1. About Cambodia

Unlike the previous one about feelings, the purpose of this post is to make a global summary of our concrete experience. It's a last writing about the three countries which welcomed us from May to August.

The map of our Trip (counterclockwise) - Before, it was looking like that, remember : click here.

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Part 1. Cambodia (Battambang - Phnom Penh - Sihanoukville - Siem Reap)

To begin somewhere, I would like to tell you about Cambodia, this fascinating land. For my part, Cambodia stays my Crush. Not cause it was especially surprising, neither due to the landscape, nor because people were particularly nice. To be honest, Lao Nature has way more to offer than the Khmer's one (for what we saw), Thailand is also great for amazing landscapes. About the people, Thais are (in general) nicer than in Cambodia. Regarding the fact of being surprised, Cambodia is the country which was the less at odds with my expectations. But Cambodia, is by far the one which deeply touched me.

First, it has an incredibly sad History (French colonization, civil war, Khmers Rouges), which is, if you inform yourself as well as we did, already enough to move you.

But travelling through Cambodia, (mostly in the East), we met a lot of locals who were craving to speak about the political situation in their country with foreigners, as doing it between Khmers is too risky. We, so, learnt about the political context in Cambodia through these different meetings. All of them, angry and hopeless. explained us that the King, Norodom Sihamoni, is unskilled, and rather like being a professional dancer than a leader. If they think the King as useless, they also see their government as illegitimate. The current Khmer government was put in power by the Viets (Cambodian People's Party). All the people we met were in support of the opposition... (coincidence ?). But they told us, helpless, that the oposition has basically no chance to win, as for every election days the Khmer government opens the Vietnamese border, and lets the Viets coming to vote for the Cambodian People's Party.

You can feel an extreme poverty everywhere, and see that the people try everything to find a way to get money. It can be frustrating that Khmer people often start what looks like a nice exchange, but always turns out in an attempt to obtain money from you. The hardest is to have to say no when so many children try to sell, saying that they need you to afford school, crying in your arms, ... Most of them have parents, and education is free in Cambodia. Most of the time, the parents send themselves their children in the street, hoping to get a bit money. You're almost happy when you see these between five and fifteen years old children trying to sell bracelets... Cambodia is sadly famous for its high children prostitution. That's also why we did not stay longer than two days in Phnom Penh, you feel that something goes really wrong each time you put a foot in front of the other in the street.

I remember our tour with a local in the beautiful Ream National Park (Sihanoukville). In the car, on the way to enter the forest, we crossed some pieces of land where trees had been burned or cut. We asked why to our guide (it shouldnt be, we thought it's a protected area). He explained us, angry, revolt and sad, that his government sells more and more parts of Khmer territory and heritage, mostly to China and Vietnam. Then, you understand the deep hate that Khmers have for these two countries. Later the same day, in the Park, we saw what we thought were tourists like us. Around ten fat Chineses, coming from a promenade on the river which crosses the amazing jungle, going in their huge expensive cars... Businessmen. A short visit of their new purchase, that they're going to fuck, like they already fucked a substantial part of it.

Cambodia's problems are unfortunately plentiful, and everyone who goes there can see this misery quite easy. A scandalous political situation, a deep poverty, catastrophic issues related to education and prostitution, an hard loss of an important part of Cambodia's property, an abusive exploitation from Vietnam, China, and probably other countries, ...

That's difficult to face. Thankfully Cambodia has also its treasures. Even though they're the target of a terrible evil, the children there, have something magic, which is called smile. I've never seen such beams of light. Khmer kids have a really particular smile, which succeeds to make you forget the darkness all around, for a little while. If Cambodia has a pearl, is definitely not Phnom Penh, but this opportunity to face among a kind of chaos, a bunch of Humanity.

I often said it in the post related to the five weeks in Cambodia, the countryside is a wonder, Even though most of Khmer landscapes can not compete with Lao's one, plenty of spots are waiting that you set foot on their soil, and enjoy being in such emotional country.

For more photographs : click here.

For the posts about our Khmer Weeks : click here