Day 113 – Last Day Siem Reap Cambodia
Cambodia has a ton of charity projects evidenced everywhere sponsered by Australia,Germany, US, England etc. I think it is great but I am not sure what makes it so prevelant here when many countries I have visited need help. I wonder if it is a lack of governmant hindrance because they will take any help they can get or if there is sometimes an alterior motive on a country’s part.ie lots of local construction jobs being contracted to foreign companies. Whatever the reason, I hope it can be replicated because the orphanages, NGOs, free hospitals, blood donations are sorely needed.
1 in 7 children under the age of 5 dies in Cambodia because of contaminated water. This just blew me away. You read these statistics but they do not have the same impact sitting in Suburban USA. When you are actually watching toddlers run around the villages on your way to peruse their ancient monuments for $40 and realize the water their older sister trudged several kilometers to collect and pour into the large pot outside may kill them-it hits differently. I took the oppurtunity onmylastday in Siem Reap to do something productive. One of the NGOs, Trailblazers, a US one actually, is involved in various community projects. One is building simple concrete water filters for every 5 families in a village to purify the water.They cost $45 and could potentially save a family. Whatever the government is doing with tourism money it is not helping with this low cost solution. Anyway I spent the morning painting a bunch and chatting with the director over some of the insanity. I got a life back on his motorbike – yeah I could not watch driving on those roads.
That evening was my turn for travel so I headed to the airport and after a 40min flight,was back in Bangkok. I wasted 4 hours layover before boarding the EgyptAir B777 which would introduce me to my first experience in an arabic culture.
I can not say enough about Cambodia. There is just something special about the country you just can not pin down. The people, the way of life,the old history,the new history creates a draw that makes you want to explore it further which someday I hope to but for now westward I go…
Tags: Travel
dunlewey
cambodia simply has greater potentials in advancing their economy. many scholars predicted that it’s only a matter of time before Cambodia join Malaysia and Thailand in terms of economic growth. I hope they’re right… anyway, I’ll look forward to your next post. 😉