Wow it's humid. In the Mekong Delta and here in Southern Cambodia sweat is measured (by me) in number of shirts saturated in a given day. One commences sweating sometime before awaking in the morning, pausing briefly under the cold water of a shower, and recommencing imediately thereafter. All day everyday it's all glisten and drip.
Glandular hyperactivity aside, Cambodia promises to be a unique travel experience. Stepping off the boat, the difference from Vietnam - itself an extremely poor country - was striking. Outside of Phnom Penh people live in thatch-roofed huts or single corrugated tin rooms, bumby dirt roads winding around gravel pits and parked bulldozers. Along the road runs a massive ditch that gaunt, dark-skinned men tiredly plough by hand. The landscape calls to mind pictures I've seen of much of Africa (Alex?), vast plains of brown grass and scrub, occasional towering lonely palm trees, a caravan of trucks kicking up dust in the distance.
History weighs heavily on this part of the world, Cambodia having formally emerged from war less than two decades ago. Signs of the poverty and struggle are obvious and everywhere, and yet upscale dance clubs like Heart of Darkness are filled nightly with Phnom Penh's wealthy young elite. Even here one recognizes foreign elements in a thorough frisking at the door and stories of gun violence in the streets.
Interesting travel awaits.
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