Cambodia, Friday, February 10 – After Saigon, we had a wonderful relaxing day at sea sunning in 80 degree weather with mild seas. We arrived in Sihanoukville, Cambodia on Feb 10. Cambodia is still a third world country. Very poor but getting investment from China to build factories. This is its only deep water sea port. It is a town of a couple hundred thousand, new port facilities, very poor people, a few new Chinese five star resorts, and lots of trash everywhere. Rather than spend time in the town, we took a tour to the Ream National Park which was very worthwhile. After a short bus ride, we got on river boats and ran down the river along mangrove forests. We again saw lots of fishing using nets and gathering of shell fish by people who spend all day in the water diving down to get them. We toured a small fishing village which had a Korean Christian missionary school. Then a 40 minute treck through the forest to a very lovely white sand beach with an Chinese developed eco resort. We enjoyed swimming in the surf and a lovely barbecued fish, shrimp and squid lunch with the local Ankour beer. On the way back, we stopped a Meditation Mountain to see the Buddhist temple and a “dead man” who was lying in front of one of the Buddhas, but was only sleeping it off. Cambodia is a kingdom with a king and a prime minister who runs the government. They clearly have a long way to go to catch up with Viet Nam or Thailand.
Your vignettes are great. It's fun to juxtapose your adventures with what we saw in Cambodia. Did you notice there are relatively few old people?
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