More on Cambodia...

After seeing the horrors of Phnom Penh, I jumped on a bus and traveled 6 hours up to Siem Reap, home to a little place called Angkor Wat. In case you wonder how much the ticket was, I paid a whopping USD$3.50.

You might think that it really sucked going on the bus for 6+ hours, but it wasn't so bad. We stopped every couple of hours for a break, and I enjoyed seeing the countryside. Traveling throughout Asia has been an amazing experience for me. My idea of cleanliness has definitely changed, as my need for an excessive amount of material possessions. I've seen people with very little, yet in some ways they seem happier and more content with life than I find myself at times.

But enough of the philosophy. Back to Cambodia. On we go, to the countryside...

It was really cool to see the countryside. In rural Cambodia, a lot of people live in simple huts which sit above the ground. There are a lot of rice farmers, kind of like Japan. The difference, though, is that Cambodian people do a lot of work by hand or with animals. Um... they eat spiders. Yeppo, spiders. We stopped at a roadside stand for a refreshment break, and I walked over to buy some pineapple. While standing at the table paying for my pineapple, I noticed the creatures in the bowl below. Was I freaked out? Not yet. When the woman picked one up and dangled it toward me, laughing...that was The Freaked Out Moment.



I was absolutely astounded to see some of the living conditions, though. See, there are a lot of poor people, and then a whole lot more landmine victims. I don't remember where I read the statistic, but it's estimated that one out of every 235 people is a landmine victim. Everywhere you went, except for in Phnom Penh, there were people who were blind, or missing an arm, or a leg. Or an arm and a leg. Or two arms. Or both legs...

So to live in the tropics, yet be poor and have no arms nor a job, nor any possibility of finding work because manual labor usually requires one to have arms...