The transition from Thailand to Cambodia at Poi-Pet couldn’t be more drastic. Cambodia is incredibly poor. The highways and most streets are completely unpaved. Many of their destroyed monuments have only been replicated with cheap plaster. There are people missing multiple limbs everywhere. The country is littered with land mines. Its really hard to rebuild a completely shattered culture when you can’t even walk around –let alone farm– without exploding. On the bright side, the signs and seeds of growth are everywhere.

Everyone on the street says “Hello!”. Moms wave their baby’s arms and teach them to say “Hello! Howareyou!” to foreigners. Everyone wants to talk to you. Not to sell you something, but to practice enough English so that they can eventually sell something. Its difficult to describe the desperation you feel here. The police want to practice their English with you. The most basic contact with you is gold. There’s a lot of begging.

As we entered Poi-Pet we saw a British kid get mobbed by street children. The people in this border town have nothing and the Brit didn’t have a good hold of his bags. He looked frightened, so I waded in to help. I found myself a rich foreigner in the middle of a public square about to fight the local youths for control of a backpack. I felt absurd, but the kids jumped away after a tap on the shoulder.

We stopped to eat at a cafe one night in the town of Siem Reap. We followed our usual practice of looking for a clean, crowded place without English signs. When we sat down we were warmly welcomed by no less than six waiters who hovered to attend to our every need. The head waiter took our order and then plunked down to practice English. He has 4 siblings living in the country, Pol Pot killed his father and he makes about $30 a month as the head waiter. That’s a good job. Average income for Cambodia is like $200 a year. A meal at a restaurant will run you $1.25.

One thing I hadn’t seen in Thailand or Laos was guys practicing fighting in the street. Khmer boxing is just like Thai boxing. When men and boys are idle (which is most of the time) they start playfully chucking knees and elbows at each other.

Tourism is a big part of the solution for this place. The area next to the famous Angkor Temples is exploding with (relative) prosperity. But foreign capital is scared. Cambodia is caught in the catch-22 of needing infrastructure and a well paid government to get tourism and capital, but that won’t happen without infrastructure and less corruption.

Here’s some photos before we get on to Siem Reap’s big draw: The Temples….