I loved Cambodia. It was the perfect mix of familiar and un, all wrapped up into one. The amount of poverty contrasted with their amazing command of the English language is what surprised me the most.
Although the 12 hour bus ride from HCMC was grueling, I wouldn't have done it any other way, for the chance to see the countryside of this recently war-torn country was priceless. Tourism was, within the past decade, reintroduced to Cambodia following the atrocities and genocide forced on the nation by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
Despite this astronomical setback, one would never know the nation was forced back to Year Zero only a few decades ago. In Siem Reap, the town just outside the Angkor Temples, the variety of western amenities rivals that of only the biggest tourist cities in Vietnam. Many people from home thought I was facing certain death by venturing over the Cambodian border. However, my fate was much sweeter; that of $10 massages, adorable children, friendly Buddhist monks and and ruins rivaled only by the final scene in Planet of the Apes.
Enjoy my ride from Saigon to Siem Reap (with a pit stop in Phnom Phen) below and here.
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