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Published: January 11th 2011
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After leaving Phnom Penh, we arrived in Siem Reap. The first stop was the floating villages. This is a huge and undesirable wake up call. The people who live in these villages simply bathe, swim, crap, wash plates, etc. in the same murky water. There were many children and babies living in these shacks of homes. As we were on a boat, smaller boats would come whizzing by and a child would jump onto our boat (while in motion) with soda cans and such. It was crazy! A child protective service clearly doesn’t exist in these areas. The first girl must have been no older than 7 taking the leap on our moving boat. The father just paced behind us until she was done. Sadly, I was the only one to give her $1. Everyone else took photos. The next pimping father was sad as he approached the boat with 2 little girls. If I had to guess the older girl was around 8 and the younger girl was around 4 or so. The little one had a snake around her neck. She simply held the head of the snake, smiled and gave the peace signs symbol with her hand. I
gave her a $1, yet no one else did… but continued taking her photo. PEOPLE – get with it.
We then stopped at a floating market area. Here was a pit of undernourished crocodiles. You can actually buy whole live fish and feed the crocs (while the fish is attached to a long pole). The problem was one of the Gumpers on my trip bought a fish and teased the crocs as if this was somewhat entertaining. The crocs are balancing on wood; however in the middle there is no beams, so the crocs fall right into the water. Now imagine an idiot waving the fish just so the crocs will jump to get a taste of the fish and fall in a pit. It was terrible! Anyhow after what seemed like forever we starting getting back on the boat. The boat was surrounded with locals. Children starting to ask for dollas. Yes, dolla, dolla, dolla… then came the cries. Mothers held their newborns up in your face and said dolla for food. OYE. There was a boy – probably about 8 who simply put a fake cry on, which was whinier more than anything. He was too old
for the act… I wanted to bring him to school or something. This was too much to watch.
The 2 main sites in Cambodia are the capital and Siem Reap. Our local tour guide explained how there is so much more to see in Cambodia. Apparently Cambodia is the poorest of poor. Outside these 2 sites are so many poverty stricken areas, that most tourists wouldn’t want to see much more. When I say tourists, I mean people like me who can only handle so much. I am not even sure how many people want to learn about or face these harsh realities. I always look back and am thankful for these sorts of experiences, but I am so saddened by them… yet besides donating money there isn’t much I can do. My guide back in Phnom Penh asked me if I can stay and teach English. I thought wow, what an experience that would be for a brief moment, but then I thought I definitely couldn’t handle living in this country. Most people come to Siem Reap and stay at 5 star hotels and spend time with guided tours of the temples and enjoy the spas. Unfortunately, the
mass land and tragic lifestyles tend to go unnoticed by many visitors. Now I know when someone tells me how beautiful Siem Reap is, I can tell you… they most likely went to see things like Angkor Wat. I would say if you come to visit these parts of the world, take in some reality. It will put some hair on your chest!
Something interesting about Cambodia is that they seem to ONLY use US dollars. No matter what, they only dispense US dollars at all ATM machines. Something else, all the bills are new as they will not accept older currency. All menus, souvenir shops… everything listed as USD. Generally speaking, almost everywhere I went to in South East Asia has US dollars along with their own currency listed. I don’t even know the exchange rate in Cambodia as there was no reason to.
The only thing that differs that I see so far in Cambodia vs. surrounding Buddhist countries is that the people are not as happy. The people here beg more than anyone else in the world that I have been. Someone mentioned begging is illegal in Laos – I will look into that… They
throw their babies in your face … they follow you for blocks on the streets even though you say no to giving them money. It is heart wrenching as you want so bad to give money, but we were told not to give anything as if you give $1, they will then follow you even further for another $1 or ask for $5. Of course there was one occasion when I gave a little girl a $1 which in turn caused other children to follow me and cry their heads off as they wanted one too. I almost started crying as I ran out of dollar bills within seconds. OYE.
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