Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Well, we enjoyed the Mekong trip - the ricebasket of Vietnam. Clive did not enjoy the last day and the hard seat. For me it was long but the first 2.5days were relaxing and well organized.
Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, seems a great place. Big wide streets, great restaurants (do you detect a theme everywhere?) with the help of Lonely Planet - and cheap lager beer. It is easy to navigate and quite relaxing with a few sights to see. We did go to the Genocide Museum which was a school and then a prison. It documents some of the atrocities and gives stories and faces to a few of the people murdered during the Khmer regime of '75 - '79. Also a society that abolished money and education and many other things - but not the work of the proletariat! and then killing people for no reason. How many societies experience this horrific genocide! But then I guess people disagree at all levels - from war and international disagreements all the way down to friends and families. Some thread of disagreement and competition. The result nowadays is a society where there are lots of Lexus, BMWs and we even saw a Hummer; and then people without limbs or blind and begging everywhere. There seems to be lots of wealth and lots of poverty - in contrast to what we saw in Vietnam. There seems to be international aid and seemingly lots of corruption. Hopefully the average citizen will fare better as time goes on.

About the food.... some changes since Vietnam - missing the strong strong coffee with condensed milk, the tables always had soy sauce and hot sauce on them, the flavours were always pleasant and pretty mild - more upscale usually better cooked. Here in Cambodia there is a more Thai influence - last night we had fish with the lime juice, sugar, salt and pepper for a sauce. They use lots of coconut milk and the rice seems a little sweeter. These countries are not afraid to use sugar in their cooking. In the city the food seems better than at the beach - swings and roundabouts but we are enjoying.

Another thing that you see as soon as you enter Cambodia is lots of shrines, Buddhist temples and so on being constructed from cement. Trying to rebuild a devastated country.
The first night we could not understand the ATM and then we learned that everything is done in American dollars unless you get change for less than $1. Anyways that is so easy now. None of the l7,000 /vietnamese dong to the American dollar and 13,000 dong to the Canadian dollar.