Pearl of Asia or Land of the Lexus?

Lonely Planet opens it’s Phnom Penh entry with… “it’s exotic, it’s chaotic, it’s beguiling, it’s distressing, it’s compulsive, it’s repulsive”.  I have to agree.  PP is all of those things and lots more of those types of words.  It’s a place of great contradiction.  No matter where you look, there’s a contradiction, whether it be in wealth, culture or even hygiene.

The very first day we entered Cambodia – after coming from touristy Thailand – I thought to myself “Why?  Why is it like this?  Why is one side of the border relatively clean and the road repaired and the other side looks like a warzone?”  When we came from Cambodia into Vietnam, once again, it’s like progressing 20 years – just by crossing an unseen line on the map.

We were shocked by the conditions in Siem Reap, being our first stop in Cambodia,  but when we bussed into Phnom Penh, I think we realised that Siem Reap is indeed a touristy town and even by Cambodian standards is pretty tame.  PP on the other hand shocks the hell out of you from the first second just with the traffic and the volume of rubbish on the streets.   After you’ve recovered from that, and start to look beyond, you see the people – mainly walking, some on bicycles or cyclos, some on motorbikes and quite a few driving shiny black Lexus 4WD’s.  Hang on!  Double take!  Lexus 4WD?  How can they afford that?  They must be driven by expats…  No – looks like Cambodians driving them.  Hmmm…  I put that away in the back of my mind.

After we had been here for a few days, I really felt the need to try to understand what had happened to this country – why was it this way?  I knew about the Khmer Rouge, but wasn’t that 30+ years ago?   I have by no means read widely, but what little I did find out from books and also from chatting to people, both expats and Cambodian, helped answer some of my questions – but also left a lot unanswered, which I think is a problem for a lot of visitors to Phnom Penh. 

It seems Cambodia has been used and abused by a number of other countries over the years, including the Thais, Vietnamese, French, USA and of course betrayed by their own countrymen – in the name of greed.  The country was decimated by the Khmer Rounge (it’s estimated that over 2 million people were killed during the 4 years Pol Pot was in power), but the fallout from that continues today.

We spoke to the owner of our guesthouse – he was 5 when the Khmer Rouge took power.  He said that people continued to live only for today; they could not and would not plan for the future as it has become a culture to think there probably won’t be atomorrow.  Unfortunately, it has also become common to think only about oneself – survival of the fittest – anyone not able to look after themself usually suffers alone.

Today, corruption is a massive problem, throughout all levels of society – hence the Lexus domination.  I was cynically told by an expat that those vehicles were my Aussie tax dollars at work, due to the millions of dollars in aid funding from Western countries – it apparently doesn’t filter very far from the top.

It seems the people don’t expect anything to change anytime soon – again to the detriment of long term thinking.  It’s quite depressing from the outside in, as you can see just how much needs to be done but really can’t see that it will ever be done, even on a minor scale.

On a positive note though, there are many non-government organisations doing the best they can for the people.  As Mother Teresa said- “If you can’t feed100 people, just feed one”.