Living in Cambodia...: March 2010

Its controversial but the more I know it the more I don't like Siem Reap (shock horror!). Its full of people who just want to "do" the temples and get out of Cambodia ASAP and its soooo touristy (of course). Its just not very real. Its also the only place I have ever got seriously food poisoned in Cambodia. That said I love (a) the guest house that I have stayed in a few times there [name be be confirmed!] , (b) the cakes from the Blue Pumpkin (c) the happy ranch horse centre - yeehaaa! and (d) a particular tuk tuk guy called Sambo...so it has its ups.

Anyway, this week on my daily commute to work, reading the free "newspaper" which is the "Metro" I came across a 1 inch by 1 inch story that said that Korea was going to upgrade the roads around the Angkor Wat complex.... Having done a quick search to look for more on this it appears to have got the same amount of column inches in the Phnom Penh Post. Clearly not a massive news story then. However, its interesting that it is Korea who are providing the cash - over $9m in fact. I can' say I've ever personally noticed the roads being that awful and quite like the fact that the more remote temples are ... well, remote(!) but there again I have not been in a large coach shipping Koreans left right and centre and those small roads must be terribly inconvenient when you have an entire temple complex to see in 6 hours.... They are banning trucks though which is good. However, what about banning large coaches with large grops wielding dangerous (yet somehow attractive) umbrellas?!

The alternative would then of course be one of the electric carts so you can be shipped around in Disney-like fashion.

Call me "temple snob" but ..... Terrible. Why oh why......

The Metro also did a centre piece on the delights of Cambodia last month - All very odd to be on the train going into the office reading an article on this fantastically exotic holiday I should be having in familiar haunts like Kep or even Siem Reap....