We booked our return flight to Thailand on AirAsia from Phnom Penh, because it was 400 bucks cheaper than flying directly back to Bangkok from Siem Reap. This wrinkle in our travel plans meant that we had to find some way to get from Angkor to Cambodia's capital city, several hundred kilometers to the southeast. Some intrepid travelers go by boat, and others by bus, but we wanted to see a few sights around Phnom Penh and so we splurged on a private car to transport us early Sunday morning halfway across the country. Considering what's left on our two week itinerary, this seemed like a good idea. If we burn out early on some of these smaller travel legs, we won't have the opportunity to really appreciate Sri Lanka next week...
So we negotiated a price for the 5 hour drive with Mr. Hour Lyath (aka Mr.Lee), the charming young father of a newborn son who had spent the weekend driving us around the Angkor temples. He was delighted to make some extra money during the weekend of the Khmer New Year, and arranged to pick us up promptly at 7 am and drive us to Phnom Penh while also taking us on a detour to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. It promised to be a long day...
We packed our stuff in Mr. Lee's Toyota Camry and wheeled out of town. For the first 20 miles out of Siem Reap, the roads was smooth, a thanks to the Japanese government who helped build that stretch of the highway with grants and construction expertise. After those 20 miles, the rest of the road was built by
the Cambodian government, and there was a marked difference in the quality of the surface. When your government is incapable of producing quality infrastructure, something is fundamentally wrong...
The ride was eye-opening. You'd think the road between two of the largest cities in the country would be a highway, but the entire 300 km length of it was just two lanes. National Route #6 is just a scrawny road with the occasional yellow line in the middle that no one bothered to pay attention to. No road rules applied, and the entire drive seemed like one extended game of chicken between us and cars and motorcycles hurtling along at us from the opposite direction. At the last possible moment, Mr. Lee would swerve out of the way, but I spent much of the ride wondering if entrusting our lives to Cambodian road rules was a good idea... No lanes, no speed limits, no cops... I tried not to look after awhile and just focused on the landscape passing by....
The country was beautiful. Green horizons, palm trees, and all along the road were tiny ramshackle houses constructed on stilts, with hammocks and motorcycles parked in the shade beneath each home. There was farmland as far as the eye could see, and trees of every shape and size. I've always been of the persuasion that you can't really appreciate what America is until you drive through it, from coast to coast, watching the earth's topography change as you pass from state to state. Cambodia's landscape changed as well as we drove through it, but certain aspects were consistent. There was no concealing the poverty of this country, nor its dysfunction. For all its rich biodiversity and stunning temples, the fact that vast swaths of the
country seem so underdeveloped is an indictment of the nation's leadership. The traumas of rece
nt history still loom over the horizon, and you can see it in every face you encounter. This is a country still struggling to be born anew...
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