It has been a while

I have not been able to access to this blog for a long while. Just got back from a long postponed honeymoon to Cambodia. Loaded some photos to Facebook.

Cambodia is generally poor, Siem Reap is considered their pretty good town,but it is about 30-50 year behind some of our South East Asian countries. Nonetheless I love Cambodia for its people, they still have some basic human trusts among the crowd. They aren still some very precious human interactions and instinct that will soon be lost as the country advances.

Things are not cheap in Siem Reap, everythings starts from USD1, from fridge magnets to a pencil. Otherwise, it would be USD 20....nothing in between. But it is relatively easy to haggle compared to China.

Perhaps we visited the market pretty early (around noon) so they are superstitious about getting the first deal than making good profits.

Food and drinks are considered expensive, judging from the average local income (USD 140 a month.). A meal in local hawker stall next to the road, not by any tourist hot spot cost about USD5.

We went to Angkor Wat, entrance is USD 20 per person for 1 day and USD40 for 3 days. Most of the attractive stuffs are in the small circuit. The grand circuit consists mainly small temples and barriered archeology sites.

The main attractions are Angkor Wat, Bayon temple and Ta Phorm, which means main temple in local language. Those huge trees that grow in between the temple structures are impressive, it shows the age of the temples, but it also destroys the temple through time. It somehow shows the Buddhist believe - nothing stays or gone forever.

In the trip to Tonle Sap lake, we witnessed some poor lives,but it made me wonder if they would be any happier if they were richer.... We lost many things to get rich and developed, but in the end all we asked for are the same old basic things.

I am sure there are a lot more pitiful stuffs happening in Cambodia, especially with their rich mineral-precious gems. I hope they will learn to protect themselves better.