On Leaving Cambodia

"Cambodia seems a hopeless country", says a British traveller we meet in passing while we are leaving Vietnam.

I don't want him to be right. And I don't think it's hopeless. I have seen plenty of hope.

But still, Cambodia is going to haunt me. It has been bitter sweet - and that's a simplification. 

As I pack my bags and we wend our way to the airport for a flight that will take us out of Cambodia and into Southern Thailand, it is the right time for the customary, 'top ten moments'. And I do have easily ten top moments. There are probably more.

But my feelings are complicated. Cambodia is stricken with poverty and has been through the darkest kinds of hell and back again over its history. When I read back over my blogs I know I have rather laboured that point. There is more to Cambodia.

And there is plenty of hope. For every house on the street, there is a charity working for better conditions, for every struggling tuk tuk driver, there is an ever increasing influx of tourists, for every dying child there are organisations like Dr Beat's, for every war torn or violent childhood there is the Phare Cambodia circus. But equally, there are countless organisations providing cheap or free education, and yet there are children begging for dollars instead - a side effect of the tourist influx. There are exploitative organisations taking advantage of poverty to run gang operations like the baby milk scam. There is dirt scraping, desperate poverty and millionaires building mansions and driving up prices. 

Cambodia receives more foreign aid than any other country. But for all the help - for all the hope - I can't help but think that for long term, large scale recovery Cambodia will have to reach into itself, with the help of its government and build itself up from within. And that is the thing that I saw in Vietnam, that is happening in Thailand, but which I don't see so clearly here. 

I believe there is a piece missing - a bridge to prosperity which by some quirk of politics, economics or black magic simply hasn't been found yet. And I for one don't know where to start looking. I need a degree in three subjects even to understand what it should look like. Before I can find this hidden gem, this transformative power towards a mightier Cambodia.

And for now? All I have in my immediate reach is the ability to celebrate what has been so amazing about Cambodia.

There was the Phare circus, both performances deserving of a place if their own in my top list, along with everything it stands for. 

There was the Beato Cello performance and the subsequent trip to give blood to the amazing Kantha Bopha hospital.

There was the first glimpse of Ta Phrom temple, with it's haunting, curling trees, caught in the act if taking it over.

There was the mischievous monkey which stole my bike and the fun we had tempting him away with bananas.

There was A. Just being her. And the fact she is our friend now.

There was the jungle trek with N, glimpsing rare giant squirrels and rumours of tigers.

There was the cat, and the next door neighbour who came snuffling around in our garden sometimes, and who we nicknamed 'bimbly dog' for his affable face and unhurried wandering.

There was the beautiful Apsara dancing with its eerie grace and its colour and its double jointed fingers.

There was the sight of thousands of silhouetted bats, arching and winding their way out of a cave, over our heads and into the burgeoning night.

This, with its dust and its heat, with its jungle creatures and its tuk tuk drivers, is, the very shallowest glimpse of, Cambodia.

And for now, that is all I can give you. I would need decades to understand it perfectly. 

You should go for yourself. You should throw yourself at it. You should get down and dirty with it. 

That, I think, is the only way.

Turn your brain on - and it will haunt you forever.