Cambodia
I have now been in Cambodia for 3 days and it has already left quite an impression on me.
Everywhere I've gone there are people who come and ask if I want to go to a "shooting range", from what I hear and have read, for a fee you can fire M16 machine guns, grenade launchers and you used to be able to (not sure if you still can) practice on animals for extra cost. A grim reminant of the dark years in Cambodia's history.
Cambodia is still at the crossroads on the way to Demcracy, travelling from Malaysia to Thailand to Cambodia is like seeing the stages of a developing nation becoming a developed one in reverse. Most of the roads here are still dirt roads and full of potholes (even quite major ones), only half the drivers have licence plates or helmets (one Cambodia explained that licence plates are "optional"), there are no ATM's even in the capital and there are daily blackouts.
Cambodia is so rich in history and culture. Seeing both Thailand and Cambodia, it is evident how so much of the Thai culture has been taken/adopted from Khmer culture. The architecture of the Royal Palace in both countires is almost identical and both palace grounds have a temple called (in english) Temple of the Emerald Buddah, strange coincidence.
The people here seem to have such a positive spirit despite the hardships they must have been though (my guide at a museum today had lost both his parents to Pol Pot's regime).
Anyway, tomorrow I will head off to Vietnam for 1-2 weeks then I'll be back.
