Cambodia

Hi, Mom.

It has been a few days since our last update. Dan and I have made our way from Thailand to Cambodia. What an experience; there has been a lot to take in!

While in Cambodia we spent our time on the coast, exploring villages on the Gulf of Thailand, which is a very large bay that opens up and extends North from the South China Sea. The primary port of entry and largest community in this area of Cambodia is Sihanoukville, but there are several small villages in close proximity. There are also several islands just off of the coast, which are known to be relatively undeveloped and uninhabited, but havens of natural beauty. I wish we could have visited them as well, but we did what we could with the time we had.

It is going to be difficult to capture all that we experienced, so I am going to try to convey some key observations.

First of all, this is a place in the midst of extreme change. Everywhere you look there is new construction. In fact, it seems the entire area has been bought for development. While standing in a park that showcased a large Buddhist temple in central Sihanoukville I scanned the city blocks that surrounded me and saw new construction in every direction. Concrete buildings framed in, with rebar poking out of the top of the pilings, each building was at least eight stories high. Many had cranes on the top. And several had large, billboard style notices promising great things–casinos, hotels, resorts, shopping complexes. Turning in a circle, I counted more than a dozen of these huge projects in the immediate blocks around me.

What made this scene unique is that this is not a modern city. Residents of this community are living in abject poverty. There are no hotels or shopping venues. Shopping for anything occurs at shaggy street-side stands. The homes as they exist are shacks, built of a myriad of materials. A torn and weathered tarp, combined with scrap sheet metal and some pieced together wood of varying sorts (old plywood, well weathered tree fragments, old lumber) somehow come together to make suitable shelter.

In fact, Cambodia is officially one of the world’s least developed countries, exhibiting the problems that typically go along with that designation: poor nutrition, low education and literacy rates, economic weakness and widespread poverty. And evidence of the LDC designation was abundantly clear. Cambodian currency is so weak they don’t even use coins anymore. The images I am sharing reflect the reality of life in Cambodia–at least the areas we witnessed–today.

As we inquired about the stark contrast of daily life with all of this new–and slowly progressing, even seemingly abandoned–construction, we learned that China has purchased much of the Country to develop it as a playground area for Chinese citizens and of course create a profit center for investors (read: the Chinese government).

Which brings me to my second observation. This is an area of incredible, undeveloped coastline with miles of natural white sand beaches. The water is calm and warm–literally like bath water–and the natural settings are beautiful.

So putting these two observations together one can safely conclude that within the next decade, Cambodia will be a major beach vacation destination. Anyone who wants to see it first, better get there soon.

Third in my list of observations: modernization takes a toll. If I were creating this list sequentially, Cambodia’s trash problem would have been listed first.

The trash problem is overwhelming. Literally, citizens of Sihanoukville appear to have succumbed to living amid the mounds of trash and heavily littered ground that lies beneath them. Plastics of all sorts—disposable food and beverage containers, bottles, wrappers and packaging—metals ranging from construction debris to soup cans, food waste, old clothing scraps, and simply indescribable amounts and varieties of rubbish seem to be growing around them.

It would be difficult for any traveler to get past the trash to see the true Cambodia that lies beneath. This is why I did not start my update to you with what was first, and immediately, so overwhelming. Because it did take time to see past the trash. But we did. And that leads me to the final, deepest and most lasting imprint.

The people of Cambodia are incredible. They are open, welcoming, and loving. They want to engage. They are genuine and kind. They may live in poverty, but they are rich in spirit. They are happy.

Nothing captures the beauty of the Cambodian people better than the time we spent engaging with children along the way.