We spent most of the day on the road going to Cambodia in a not very comfortable bus.
Right now i'm in my hotel room and don't wanna leave it... I tried it though! I went out and took a walk, but after 10 minutes i turned around and went back, cause i just don't have any energy left - no idea why. But i will try to write... It's gonna be a short post though, since we didn't do much today.
We left early in the morning and drove for nearly 5 hours to the border. It was the first time i entered a country on foot (you have to walk through the border there) which was somehow amusing, but the amusing part was soon over after we were told we're gonna have another 2 hours in the bus. Our new guide is a little bit friendlier, but speaks just bad russian and bad russian is even worse than russian! But i'll get used to it. He speaks english at least, so i can communicate. The previous one barely understood a word.
After we started moving from the border i fell asleep soon enough because that's something i do in buses, so i didn't see much, but whenever i was awake i would look through the window and observe the country. It seemed completely different from Thailand direct after entering it. It's quite flat and with lots of fields (mostly rice fields). You can clearly see its climate from the plants, trees and grass, but it doesn't look as wild as Thailand with palms and crazy bushes all over. Cities and villages look rather empty and abandoned, there's not much going on, cars are worse than in Thailand. It seems to be a really poor country, but the whole time our guide was telling us how awesome Cambodia is and how all of the bad foreigners wanted to have this land, because it's so rich and good, he said Cambodia has everything and there's nothing missing, but what we saw told me a different story. At least that was the first impression. Probably i shouldn't judge a country after being there for couple of hours... Our hotel is in Siem Reap - it's a city with 1000 000 inhabitants, yet it has only 9 traffic lights and lots of the streets are still plain soil or mud. Of course you have also the wanna-be city centre with KFC and stuff like that, but it just doesn't feel like a city, it feels like couple of villages without a border which were fused together.
It is somehow more of what i was expecting, but it also gives me a somehow negatively cold effect. Our guide told us that knowledge is really important here and i yet again i cannot judge it, but everyone speaks way better english than in Thailand - finally. They still don't understand well and you have to repeat it many times or even go to primitive english like: "teacher. money. get. how much?" if you wanna ask how much does a teacher earn, but at least they'll give you an answer.
Most of the men have longer nails than i do which makes me stare at it even though i know i shouldn't, but it's just sooo hollywood for me i cannot hold back. I've seen those asian guys with long fingernails in the movies all the time and there you have it - it does exist. Hilarious!
The only thing we've done today was visiting a huge lake with lots of illegally living taiwanese. That lake is the biggest one in the south-eastern Asia as he said and it had about 50 000 families living there. It was quite interesting and shocking to think about it...
They live simply on the water in their small floating sheds, doing everything in the water: using it as a toilet, as a shower, as a playground and so on.
They do not live as bad as i have thought, but you cannot call it good either. It makes you sad seeing small kids growing up there without being able to actually go anywhere. But they do have television and electricity from batteries. Not every household has it, but lots of it... Some of them have dogs and cats and even pigs!!! Yes, pigs on water.
What actually shocks you is the mass of it - it's huge! And it is unfortunately real, they just simply live there on their free will and do not want to move anywhere...
However what shocked me mostly was the fact, that those people here still have a pretty good life, but what about those in the middle of nowhere? Without any geeky tourists who buy this and that and give children money? That is reality with a big layer of make-up.
I hope i can lead my life well enough to be able to adopt one of those kind of kids one day and offer them life. You cannot really say they're not happy - they do have friends there, pets, and even food or school, but i know i could offer them much more and i will try to do that. If i can.
Tomorrow we're going to the Angkor Wat, so i want to rest... Tonight is a night-off for me with a book and my blog and maybe retouching some pictures i have to work on for a client.
I wish you all a peaceful day/night/morning/evening!
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