Siem Reap

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Sunday, December 12th
Siem Reap, Cambodia

We left on a 90 minute flight from Hanoi to Siem Reap, a city of 120,000 people. Even though Siem Reap sees approximately 2 million tourists each year visiting the temples of Angkor, the people in this area are among Cambodia’s poorest.

From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, set about restructuring and transforming Cambodia into a peasant dominated agrarian cooperative. Residents, especially those in Phnom Phen were forced to march into the countryside to work as slaves for 12 to 15 hours per day. Millions were executed. April 17, 1975, the official date of the Khmer Rouge rule was designated as Year Zero. The Khmer Rouge rule was brought to an end by the Vietnamese on January 7, 1979. Unfortunately Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998 and was never tried for his crimes.

The Khmer Rouge regime left Cambodia with rising poverty and a 38% illiteracy rate. Even today most children receive only primary and secondary (middle school) education, but not high school. Many children do not go to school at all, especially in rural and fishing villages. Everywhere you look you see victims of land mines planted by the Khmer Rouge. Today, living conditions are slowly improving due to tourism. The average Cambodian earns about $750 per year. Fewer than 2% of the people have bank accounts.

Our hotel, the Prince D’Angkor, was about 1 mile from the old quarter and night market. Needing the exercise, we walked the main road passing restaurants, massage parlors, and shops selling everything from housewares to crocodile bags. Once in the night market, we were inundated by sellers hawking goods and services. For the price of one beer ($1 - one dolla, only one dolla) you could sit with your feet in a spa and have a fish massage - yes, the spa was filled with fish that would eat the dead skin off your feet. I think the pedicure in the Old Quarter of Hanoi was more hygienic!

The best part of the night market was the Blue Pumpkin ice cream stand. Can you guess what my favorite food is? Ymmmmm

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