Thailand and Cambodia: Introduction
July 21, 2007
Back in my living room now with all the creature comforts I take for granted and expect daily now, I’m trying to collect all my thoughts from this nearly one week trip. The lack of sleep yesterday-today, slight diarrhea, and a general sense of malaise after being in an airplane is not making it any easier.
I think this trip really opened our eyes to a part of the world that we’ve only ever heard about or seen in pictures or on TV. For me I think the way I see life and people will never be the same and I mean that in a very positive way.
Wat Phra Kaew
Some folks in Thailand showed us a level of hospitality that I would almost never expect from people in Canada or Japan, without having them expect something back. Cambodia was definitely the poorest country I have ever been to. Even so, we visited Siem Reap, a fast growing city and I know people there probably have it better than people in the rural areas. There too, people seemed to treat each other, and treat tourists with a much higher level of respect than we would to them, I think.
Ad on a remorque-moto
Unfortunately we only had the chance to visit Bangkok and Siem Reap. Had we had more time and had the woman been more adventurous (and less reliant on her crappy Japanese guidebook), I would’ve loved to visit other areas that people keep touting about. In a way though, the two cities were opposite extremes and seeing the contrast made for a very interesting trip.
I’ll post more details on Thailand and Cambodia individually. I’m still sorting through all the pictures I took and looking for gems. The hardest part is trying to match the names of places with the pictures and remembering tidbits that happened there.
