Cambodia

So we arrived in Cambodia today and it has been jam-packed.  We first went through customs at Siem Reap and found the people to be a lot less nice than the Japanese (the Japanese are incredibly nice and hospitable).

First thing I notice - Cambodia is ghetto.  Super ghetto.  Everyone rides bikes or motorbikes and they ride 2-5 to one bike. Yes, entire families fit onto once motorcycle!  It's incredible.

Accordingly, everything is dirt cheap.  For example, our hotel: 4-star.  Legit 4-star.  Very plush, very nice.  $30 per night per room (two queen beds).  Literally, you can make a decent wage in the U.S., come over here and live like kings.  Tonight about 15 of us ended the night at the 'night market' and paid a whopping $1 for a fifteen minute foot and calf massage.  No, that is not a typo.  One U.S. dollar.  Crazy.

Dinner: authentic, quality curry = $4. And, just as it was in Japan, tax and tip are calculated into the price. If you tip further, it is considered an insult.

Anyway, after checking into the hotel, we took the buses out to Angkor Wat (the LDS branch president out here runs a travel and tourism company and so he chauffeured us around today).

Angkor Wat is to Cambodia what the Mayan ruins and Chichen Itza are to Mexico.  It's been around for about 1000 years and can be seen in movies such as Tomb Raider, Mortal Combat, The Jungle Book and Transformers 3.  Huge, massive kingdom with a  giant man-made moat build around it.  I mean the city is about a mile in diameter and the moat goes all the way around and is at least 200 yards wide.  It's just unreal the time it must have taken to build this stuff.  And the intricacies of the engravings on the walls and such are just painstakingly detailed and of the highest quality.  Check out the link to Wikipedia above.   It's the most impressive piece of history I've ever seen.

The sad thing about Cambodia is that they clearly were a very technologically advanced society years ago.  I would argue that they were just as advanced as about any civilization of their day.  And things have drastically turned around the wrong direction for them.  If you are interested, I recommend checking out "Cambodia's Curse."  It's a book providing a detailed overview of their history and culture.  About 30-40 years ago a new political regime took power and they literally killed in genocide massive amounts of educated people, along with their books and records.  Terrible story.

Ok, enough for now.  Hope things are going well for everyone.