white clouds flying: Cambodia

AKA Underwhelming?

I had a month and didn't want to rush and so I chose just one country to visit and I chose Cambodia. (Partly because it was right next door but mostly because Steph had just been there.) And I loved it. Traipsing around temples, travelling from town to town by boat, biking the backroads, even walking the endless southern beaches… it was totally lovely (and insanely cheap). Almost without exception however, the other tourists I talked to overwhelminigly described it as underwhelming. Vietnam is more vibrant, they said, Loas more laidback, Myanmar less touristy, the beaches are better in Indonesia, the food better in Thailand, the temples pale beside those of India, and well there's nothing like the hiking in Nepal… Everyone seemed in agreement that they could easily just have left Cambodia right off their itinerary. Wow. Well. Maybe. But I was more than happy here and don't regret my decision to come. At all. From the allure of ancient Anchor in the north to the hustle and bustle of markets in the capital city to the idyllic islands in the south it's all been awesome. Underwhelming? What are they thinking?

(Unfortunately, as I was travelling without a camera and am not always quick to pull my phone out, I don't have pics of a classic Cambodian house, floating on a lake or up on stilts, or family, five on a motorbike with no helmets and the driver texting, or even the roadside, usually strewn with garbage. I don't have pics of the markets, hundreds of stalls selling everything from live seafood to giant golden buddhas, or the tuk tuk drivers, or even the many many friendly children who always waved and shouted hello as you passed. I was on one of those take only memories, leave only footprints type of vacations. (Next year I say, as I've said before, I'll be armed with recording gizmos and gadgets galore, but this year I was just here to experience.) (But I do have one or two.))

Cambodia is warm and wet and fertile, it has flat land perfect for growing rice and fields full of fruit and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, an abundance which easily fed both past and present civilizations.

I include a screenshot of hostel prices in Siem Reap. There were pages and pages with a price, not a booking price, a total price, of $2 CAD/ night. How this is economically feasible, even there, I cannot fathom. My habit is to always choose the cheapest accomodation possible, just on principle, but here I booked up, picked somewhere convenient, with AC, and a nice pool, and a buffet breakfast included and so most places my bill was $5 USD/night.