Leaving Cambodia: How cliches fare against our experience?
We stayed for one month in Cambodia, two weeks in Phnom Penh, its capital, and two weeks in Siem Reap, the city closest to Angkor Wat. We did take things easy here, as we needed some rest after having moved way too much to travel and work at the same time in Vietnam. When we arrived in Cambodia, I wrote about what I expected, and what are the common cliches about Cambodia. Let’s see how it fares against our experience.
Here are the three clear ideas I could sum up from my knowledge and preconceived ideas:
1- It is the poorest country we will go to: Yes. After checking data, only Burma is poorer (GDP per capita) in the region. When traveling, you can feel it in several ways, yet, the experience shows many contrasts. We stayed in the center of Phnom Penh, and the feeling was not at all a huge gap concerning other cities we have been to. Yes, there is a lack of public transportation, but… It is not the only city in the world lacking it. We could observe a significantly lower count of scooters in the streets, yet, many luxury cars (Cambodian elite love their Rolls). Yet, the difference feels deep when traveling outside the city. You can see there are still few main roads, and that in the countryside, people still use more basic transportation means, showing some creativity. When visiting fishing villages over the Tonle Sap, we could also witness how some areas still lack the basic infrastructures, and the difficulty to bring the modern infrastructures in the floating villages, for example. The areas are regularly flooded, and even when Google Maps was localizing us as being on land, houses needed to be built a few meters above the floor. If you want to help and see it by yourself, you can contact Saro who built this this association touring and building a school with the founds earned in Kompong Khleang, his hometown.
2- It’s the first country we will go to during this trip without understanding any of their alphabet, and communication may be complicated. Yes, Khmer people use their own alphabet, a very beautiful one, that we never learnt to read in France or Mexico. Yet, Khmer people were overall very comprehensive, patient and ready to help, and, compared to Vietnam, Khmer were speaking a very decent English. So, overall, it has not been so hard to overcome the language barrier when in need. Bills are not so complicated to understand though, and to ease things, the Cambodian Riel and the dollar are both used in the country.
3- I expect Angkor Wat to be incredibly magnificent and majestic… And long and physical to cover since we do plan to get bikes to go all around it. Well, yes… There will be a dedicated article, and writing my notes, I automatically wrote about three pages about the three days during which we rode around Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. If you have the opportunity, don’t limit yourself to Angkor Wat, as wandering in the ancient capital of the Angkor Empire, Angkor Thom, offers stunning and unexpected discoveries, and Bayon temple, which was in my eyes, the most impressive of the temples in the area.
And here are the cliches cited by ChatGPT after running three times the same question (5 cliches people have about Cambodia.)
1- Cambodia is a war-torn country that is still recovering from the devastating impact of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. (3 / 3): Yes, although it has now been in peace for thirty years. Here lies a large part of the reason why Cambodia lags behind economically, and, including, in education. It would be too long here to go through the reasons that brought the Khmer Rouge to power. To sum up, as Laos and Vietnam were torn by civil wars between communists and liberals (economically), Cambodia was making its way peacefully, dealing both with the USA, USSR and China in order to preserve peace inside its borders. That, until the right wing elites that just got into power decided to force peasants to sell their production to the government and not to the VietCong, using the army to enforce this decision. This led to the Khmer Rouge, a peasant Communist movement that was built in resistance of the elites from the capital. When they obtained power after a few years of war, they started to eliminate any potential opponents, and being educated was a signal of opposition. Thus, a large part of the educated people were killed during the less than 5 years the Khmer Rouge remained in power. When the Khmer Rouge lost the power over the country they remained a guerilla in the northern mountains until 1991. Their leaders have still been allowed in political life until the 00s. The photos of the 1960s Phnom Penh does show some streets that look like a modern city of that era, and in my eyes, this episode marks the main reason why Cambodia is now lagging behind economically. The atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge are well documented and there are museums everywhere in the country about them.
2- Cambodia is a poor and underdeveloped country. (3 / 3) Yes, same answer as point 1.
3- Cambodia is a dangerous place to visit, with high levels of crime and corruption. (3 / 3)
No. To put things in perspective, I live in Mexico, and overall, the most dangerous countries in the world nowadays are almost all in America, if we consider countries at peace at least. So, my reference point is already a bit extreme, and South East Asia until now has felt overall very safe. Cambodia feels extremely safe, kids are playing in the streets at night, people drive relatively carefully and at a reasonable pace. As for corruption, we did not have to face it as tourists, and did not hear ourselves of any accounts of it.
4- Cambodia is a conservative and traditional country with strict social norms and customs. (1 / 3)
No answer. Well, as for this… I’m not sure if our one month experience can correctly answer this cliche. We had mostly superficial contact with locals. The history of the country has also created many changes in the way people see things, and it does feel like the younger generations, having access to the internet, are also quickly taking for themselves the western reference. Young adults still live with their parents as we experience, but it is also the case in many countries when the basic salaries do not allow people to live alone. We did go out in bars a few times in Siem Reap, and it was fun to see very young people in nightclubs, under supervision, or full families dining on an electro set that could make your ears buzzing.
5- Cambodia is a landlocked country with no access to the sea. (1 / 3)
No. We didn’t go to check it ourselves, but the maps leave no place to doubt. The Tonle Sap makes for a large inlands body of water too.
6- Cambodian people are uneducated or illiterate. (2 / 3)
As I wrote previously, the Khmer Rouge created hatred against the elites of the capital, and education, or the simple fact to be literate, was associated with being part of the elites. being able to read at that time would tag you as an enemy and probably get you killed. If you had studied or lived abroad, you were on top of the lists. Thus, I can imagine this cliche remains in many texts around the web, but I would say it is nowadays normalized. The main issue now would probably be the access to education for the people living in villages and remote places., For example, when visiting a floating village above the Tonle Sap, we were told the village teacher needs to dedicate half his life to fishing if he wants to sustain himself. Associations organize tours in order to help finance schools and other infrastructures.
7- Cambodian food is unappealing or not as good as other Southeast Asian cuisines. (1 / 3)
No. We loved eating in Cambodia, the curries are exquisite, and overall we found very good restaurants for reasonable prices. They love lemongrass, and we love it too. You’ll find similarities with Thai food too. A red curry with rice in Siem Reap was usually around 3 or 3.5 USD, and it was a consequent serving.
8- Cambodia is a country of ancient ruins. (1 / 3)
Well, yes, Cambodia is known for its ancient ruins, and most western countries come here to see the remnants of the Angkor empire, or witness the impact of the Khmer Rouge. While there, we heard a lot that Sihanoukville, the main city of Cambodia on the sea, was popular with Chinese tourists. The country is building itself nowadays, and I do believe it is a country that will change quickly in the next few years.
Have your experience in Cambodia been different? Do you have anything to add? Tell us in comments!
